Countering Online Sexist Hate Speech in the European Legal Context: Between Present Commitment and Future Challenges

Especially in recent years – also due to the Covid-19 pandemic which has pushed us towards a massive and indiscriminate use of new technologies and towards an immersion in the virtual world for most of our days – the increase in the use of the internet and various social media has led to a dramatic surge in cases of public incitement to violence and hatred, including those based on sex or gender. Unfortunately, the disinhibiting effect of the internet, amplified by the anonymity that it can guarantee, has facilitated the multiplication of episodes of rapid and large-scale – often global – sharing of hate speech in the digital world. Women are often the targets of sexist and misogynistic hatred online, which can, in some cases, also degenerate into hate crimes in the real world. The ultimate and extreme consequence of those attacks is the ‘giving up’ of the digital space by the women victims. This essay explores the reaction of European and International Law towards this phenomenon.