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Internet Regulation and Sexual Politics in Brazil

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Abstract

In Brazil, the agitation of public anxieties about child pornography has become pivotal for recent legal initiatives to control Internet traffic, which affect Internet users’ privacy and freedom of expression. However, cyber activist protests against those measures and alternative regulation proposals have not reverberated to feminist and LGBT interests in the Internet. Sonia Corrêa, Horacio Sı´vori and Bruno Zilli argue that evidence of sexual community building on social networking platforms calls for new approaches to the exercise of sexual freedom online and off-line.

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This article presents some conclusions from the Brazilian component of EroTICs: An exploratory research project into sexuality and the internet in India, Brazil, Lebanon, South Africa, and the United States, sponsored by APC–WNSP – Association for Progressive Communications Women's Networking Support Programme. The Brazilian case study was conducted between May 2009 and June 2010. It examined: (i) the recent trajectory of internet regulatory debates by means of document review, participant observation at public online and off-line events, and interviews with key actors; and (ii) sexual community building on social networking platforms by means of online ethnography. See Corrêa et al. (2011).

Questions whether cyberspace has contributed to strengthening true democracy in Brazil

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Corrêa, S., Sívori, H. & Zilli, B. Internet Regulation and Sexual Politics in Brazil. Development 55, 213–218 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2012.4

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