Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Fall 2025

Abstract

Lawmakers and technology companies are regulating online sexuality in the name of feminism. Whereas libertarian ideals dominated early debates about internet governance, "safety" has become the rallying cry to regulate online activity in the age of Big Tech. Legislators across the political spectrum and companies around the world are devising interventions meant to keep people - and especially women safe from the risks of online sexuality. Through law and technology, they target everything from privacy invasions to unwanted messages to sexual deepfakes. We call this regulatory and ideological trend Big Tech feminism.

This Article interrogates the feminist strands animating Big Tech feminism. Overall, regulators favor prudish and punitive measures to promote sexual safety, repurposing concerns about sex harms to control and penalize harmless activity. Big Tech feminism is hardly novel in this regard. Rather, it is a contemporary example of how some feminists align with powerful elites to develop systems of sex regulation at the expense of sexual autonomy.

This Article offers an alternative regulatory agenda grounded in queer and critical feminist theory. It shifts focus from punishing wrongdoers to addressing the social determinants of safety. Safety, we argue, is best served by structuring sexual life more fairly and empowering people to shape the norms and terms of online sexuality. The interventions proposed here would enable individuals to navigate sexual risks and pleasures with greater autonomy - and thus greater safety. In this tumultuous moment for internet governance, we reimagine safety to renew the emancipatory potential of a feminist agenda.

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