This analysis critiques the anti-regulatory stance on online hate speech in relation to gendered aspects of cyberlibertarianism, suggesting alternative approaches informed by feminist principles.
The impacts of online hate speech include emotional and embodied harms that have sometimes stunted careers, resulted in lost wages and missed job opportunities, and damaged relationships (both personal and professional). Despite the real-world negative impacts of digital hate speech, many resist regulations that would mitigate these harms. What is behind the anti-regulatory stance against preventative measures to reduce online hate speech? We argue that similar to the “there is no alternative” to neoliberalism argument, which demonizes regulation and pushes traditionalism, the gendered construction of cyberlibertarianism presents online freedom as the only game in town, at least when it comes to online hate. We adapt Horton’s three-part framework of neoliberal masculinities to stress the role of gender in constructing various understandings of cyberlibertarianism. Through an intersectional feminist critique of cyberlibertarianism rooted in cyberfeminism and a critical feminist cybersecurity construction of online freedom, this paper adds to feminist cybersecurity and cyberfeminism by demonstrating how such approaches can counter cyberlibertarianism.
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Whetstone et al. (2025) studied this question.
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