DEVELOPMENTS IN ITALIAN CRIMINAL LAW ON CYBER-VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Abstract

The growing availability of technologies, virtual content and the widespread diffusion of social media has led to the emergence of a problem - that of cyberviolence - now of global reach and with significant social consequences. In this changed criminological framework, the phenomenon of male violence against women is reinforced. However, the criminal law of recent decades has slowly evolved, providing ever greater protection for women who are victims of violence. Recognition within the Italian criminal system of the so-called cybercrime runs parallel to this adjustment process. The connections between cyberspace and forms of violence against women are evident, capable of harming an even more intimate sphere, that of sexuality and its confidentiality. This intertwining led to the coining of terms such as cyberstalking and cyber harassment in common language and the Italian criminal context. However, the jurisprudential reflection on the risk underlying the emerging phenomena called sexting, sextortion and revenge porn, appears limited. Criminal law, as conceived and created to operate in a static reality, inevitably finds its limitation in providing the victim with protection synchronized for the speed of the digital world. Criminal law thus finds itself reflecting on its adaptability to liquid modernity and necessarily having to dialogue with the new branch of computer law, where the new rights to be forgotten, to the confidentiality and protection of one's data, find space and greater protection. Finally, there is an urgent need to combine protection tools that release from procedural delays and can stop the circulation of harmful content with timescales closer to the flow of current time, to counter the plague of violence against women.

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