ABSTRACT
Online gendered violence was the subject of debate in the Portuguese media around May 2017, during the traditional academic festivities (Queima das Fitas, or Ribbon Burning) of graduating university students. The most salient episode covered by the media in this regard concerns an allegedly nonconsensual video recording, disseminated on social media, of a young male student genitally manipulating a young female student, apparently unconscious due to excess drink, in a public transport bus especially chartered for the event, while a multitude of students watched, laughed, and clapped. The video was disseminated by the online version of the Correio da Manhã newspaper as well as its TV channel, giving rise to strong criticism against the media outlet from various sectors of Portuguese society. The media outlet argued that it was acting in the public interest, serving to mobilize society around a cause, namely that of collective indignation against possible sexual abuse. This episode will be analyzed so as to shed light on how the Internet, as an integral part of an expanding public sphere, has come to redefine the classical division of public and private. The chapter argues that existing Portuguese legislation does not sufficiently protect the victim’s right to privacy nor her right to the image in the context of rapidly evolving digital technology, in which the gendered violence that occurs offline is migrating online, with new specificities as regards reputation management, nonconsenting circulation, and distribution of sensitive data and risks of identity theft.
