As a “convergence culture” (Jenkins, 2006), virtual spaces amplify underrepresented voices, fostering debates on human rights and influencing policies. This chapter examines gender equity, focusing on the #MeToo movement and non-binary gender identities, including gender-neutral pronouns. Online anonymity provides vulnerable populations with a supportive network in virtual communities, enabling them to engage in debates on protective policies. These virtual discussions hold transformative potential for advancing recognition and protection for marginalized communities despite challenges posed by digital inequalities and polarized debates.

Indeed, digital activism can fuel reactionary movements. The discussion on representing gender identities through language pronouns has led YouTube and YouTubers to disable comments, aiming to protect free expression and prevent harassment. Prominent conservative figures oppose gender-neutral pronouns, claiming it infringes on free speech, a stance that has garnered significant controversy online. Videos supporting these views contribute to hostility against gender minorities. In Spanish contexts, discussions on inclusive language face additional challenges, with resistance from bodies like the Royal Spanish Academy. Public language forums often censor these discussions, violating freedom of expression. Antagonistic behaviors like trolling and cyberbullying further stifle essential conversations, raising questions about the need for regulatory interventions to protect vulnerable populations and uphold democratic discourse.

There are different generations of information warfare that evolve with technological, (geo)political and economic changes occuring in society. They are a ’convenient’ means of covert and indirect engagement with another actor in international relations while exposing oneself to the minimum of risk and accountability. It is linked to the popularized international relations concept of hybrid warfare.

I pursue the case of natural technology by arguing that it is a technology at odds with political life as such. (1) Community and loneliness. I argue that we wax rosy about “community” online to the extent that we are evoking features of offline communities that we cannot have in online terms. (2) Context and information. By removing speech from social circumstances, the internet produces insoluble problems for the understanding and regulation of speech. (3) Facing and defacing. I discuss how changes in our sense of context make a difference to our conception of who we are and of where our identities are at stake. (4) Equality and authority. I scrutinize what is meant by “democracy” in digital terms and show that it is democratic in name only. (5) Ethnonationalism and cosmopolitanism. Digital communication is tending to polarize citizens throughout the Western world either toward some form of ethnic nationalism or toward cosmopolitanism beyond material borders. I consider China as a candidate for what the internet’s intrinsic “political form” might be. (6) Little men, bigly. I show how many rhetorical features of President Trump’s tenure make sense when understood in light of the imperatives of online communication.

In this chapter, we introduce the notion of “transgression space” to describe the structure of governance of websites on which the community is characterized by the strong presence of trolls. Trolls are defined as users who constantly challenge the rules of websites they browse through, namely by posting transgressive content. The transgression space corresponds in this perspective to the arena of interactions in such communities. We demonstrate through a case study on the ``BlaBla 18-25’’ forum of jeuxvideo.com that the governance of these transgression spaces can be analysed through the Governing Knowledge Commons framework, allowing us to generalize this notion for other case studies.

Chapter six explores how the control of information has become increasingly important throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century. In particular, modern communication technologies have been foundational in creating new forms of resistance and repression. Despite British involvement in the censorship of anti-regime material, their general encouragement to liberalise the media was met again with Al Khalifa hostility to this. This continued post-Independence, yet despite recent liberalisation, the process of Al Khalifa control has persevered. In addition to exploring the historical development of repressive information practice, this chapter includes elements of a framing analysis and virtual ethnography. Here news coverage and social media content is examined to reveal that protesters and opposition are framed as violent, Iran-sponsored agents working to install a theocracy. This chapter also problematises the liberating potential of technology by arguing how it is continually adapted as a tool of surveillance and control in the recent uprising. It also analyses the growth in importance of surveillance strategies, emphasising the continued importance of transnational linkages in maintaining these repressive processes. Specifically, it assesses how private British and American companies are capitalising on whitewashing human rights abuses.

This chapter focuses on communication that takes place via new communicative technologies, particularly social media. The chapter begins with a discussion of the R-word campaign, which analyses some of the strategies and techniques that are being used to mobilize affect on the Internet. This is followed by a detailed analysis of trolling and cyber bullying, and attempts to combat it by calling for ‘safer, friendlier internet’. The key issue being examined in this chapter is the relationship between online behavior and the real world, since it is the presumed demarcation between the two domains that allows trolls and bullies to act as they do.