LAWS0357 Sexuality and the Law (partial syllabus)

Dr Michael Veale, Associate Professor in Digital Rights & Regulation UCL Faculty of Laws, 2024-25 (partial syllabus)

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I run part of this module for final year undergraduates at UCL Laws. I will maintain my part of the reading list publicly here. If other parts of the reading list are publicly available, I will add a link in future.

Sexuality, Platform Governance and Content Moderation

In recent years, online platforms have taken increasingly active roles in managing the content on their services. Deciding what should stay online or be taken down, or what should be suppressed or amplified, is a value-laden practice called content moderation. Platform companies such as Meta, TikTok, Google or Twitter all play crucial roles, and together employ tens of thousands of individuals around the world to engage in this work, alongside automated algorithmic technologies and systems for user-reporting and reputation. Governments too have been increasingly involved in content moderation too, with a range of emerging laws around the world interacting with the pratices of platforms. In this seminar, we will consider what happens when content moderation practices meet queer content, which intrinsically challenges binaries and boundaries, often seeks to subvert conventional rules and norms, and which often seeks to reclaim sexual elements that some individuals, countries or cultures consider taboo.

Questions for Consideration

Read the essential reading (2 articles, excerpts from a statute) and prepare for the following questions. - What do online platforms do to shape sexuality and sexual expression? - How are the rules of online content made, changed and enforced? Looking at the Digital Services Act, how does law interact with this? - Do you agree that social media constructs a ‘queer subject without desire’? What, if any, role for law is there in altering this state of affairs? - Imagine a governance arrangement for expression and exploration of sex and sexuality online. What elements would it have? What would be its biggest challenges?

Essential Reading

Articles

Statute

Further Reading

Sexuality, Anonymity and an Age-Gated Internet

A 1993 New Yorker cartoon proclaimed that “on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”. The same veneer of anonymity that computer-using canines made use of has also been key to allowing individuals to freely explore their sexualities on the Internet, particularly in less tolerant cultures or communities, or where infrequent identities made encountering individuals outside of the largest cities difficult. At the same time, there have been concerns around anonymity online, particularly regards the freedom it can give individuals to act with impunity and without regard for consequences; and the ease with which children can access content which may be considered inappropriate for them. In this session, we will unpack these together, looking both at the importance of control over visibility and identity for queer individuals online, and zoom in on recent UK policy proposals around age verification and assurance online.

Questions for Consideration

Essential Reading

Articles/Chapters

Statute

Further reading