Research

I'M AN ACADEMIC

I am a Post-Doctoral Researcher in Digital Sociology at the University Complutense of Madrid (P2P Models) and Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam (New Media & Digital Culture). I hold a PhD degree in Digital Sociology at the University of Milan (NASP).
My areas of expertise are human/digital rights, online discrimination and data justice. I wrote a PhD dissertation on Blockchain technology to analyse power struggles and algorithmic imaginaries embedded in digital technologies.
At the end of 2018, I became the promoter of the Italian campaign #intimitàviolata, which was launched on Change.org asking for introducing a law against image-based abuse. The campaign took to the approval of the law n.S. 1200 contained in the ddl. 'Codice Rosso' on 17/07/19 that today criminalizes the non-consensual dissemination of intimate images (NCII) in Italy.
My political engagement goes together with the research on inequalities in the digital space. My latest article (written together with Lucia Bainotti) analyses the problem of cyberviolence against women and girls in male-populated digital environments, such as Telegram groups and channels.
Today, I also work as an educator and science communicator of positive and inclusive information regarding 'sexuality+' in the digital society.

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I'M A DOCTORAL STUDENT

I was born in Valdobbiadene (TV) in 1991.
I am a PhD student in Digital Sociology at the University of Milan (NASP).
I hold a MA in Social Communication from the University Complutense of Madrid, and a BA in Political Science from the University of Padua. My areas of expertise are digital rights and data justice, and I am currently writing a PhD thesis on Blockchain social applications to research on new sets of power dynamics and algorithmic bias in digitally-mediated contexts.
I have a broad experience of lecturing, teaching and speaking at conferences, as well as a strong attested experience in building new strategies of digital communication for digital rights.
I have collaborated with different human rights organizations, in particular Amnesty International, and I have been the promoter of the Italian campaign #intimitàviolata to ask for introducing a law against revenge porn (officially approved on 17/07/19).

I'M A DOCTORAL STUDENT

I was born in Valdobbiadene (TV) in 1991.
I am a post-doctoral researcher in Digital Sociology at the University Complutense of Madrid (see P2P Models).
I hold a PhD degree in Sociology and Methodology of Social Research at the University of Milan (NASP).
My areas of expertise are human/digital rights, social movements and data justice, and I wrote a PhD dissertation on Blockchain technology to analyze new sets of power dynamics and algorithmic discrimination in digitally-mediated contexts.
At the end of 2018, I became the promoter of the Italian campaign #intimitàviolata, which asked for the introduction of a law against image-based sexual abuse. The campaign took to the approval of the law n.S. 1200 contained in the ddl. 'Codice Rosso' on 17/07/19 that today criminalizes the non-consensual sharing of intimate images (NCII) in Italy.
My political engagement goes together with academic research. In our latest article, Lucia Bainotti and I analyze the problem of NCII in male-populated digital environments, such as Telegram groups.

My PhD thesis aimed at studying the visions of the world surrounding the implementation of blockchain technology, by analysing narratives and discourses emerging among those who create and use it. Based on a critical understanding of algorithms and technology as non-neutral and as subject to bias and pitfalls, my work focused on the sociological and political significance of imagining a technology for the social and public good, posing a particular attention to developers and digital entrepreneurs’ understanding of sociality.
Drawing on a one-year multi-sited fieldwork in Milan, London, Tallinn and the online sphere, my thesis combines a theoretical analysis with ethnographical insights that arise from participant observation and a number of interviews with individuals from the blockchain scene. By relying on a qualitative study that aims at researching the values and aspirations that are encoded in technology, I have argued that blockchain social imaginary is embedded in neoliberal, technocratic visions of the world and that blockchainers’ understanding of society and social relations becomes tokenized and subject to mathematical simplifications.
This research draws from a sociological perspective that reflects on imbalances and inequalities in the datafied society, by integrating blockchain literature with studies on 'data justice' (Dencik, 2016).

My PhD research focused on the imbalances arising from the datafication of society, such as mass surveillance and data monopolies, that are calling for broader reflections on how to achieve 'data justice' (Dencik, 2016).
My case study, Blockchain technology, has been advocated by many as a technical solution to problems related to data ownership, privacy and concentrations of power on the Internet, and it is therefore starting to be applied to several dimensions of sociality, e.g. governance, art, education, music, etc.
The decentralized essence of Blockchain and its use of encryption represent among some 'crypto-enthusiasts' a technological revolution and the final solution to the centralization of power (Tapscott and Tapscott, 2016). However, some scholars have also pointed to the anarcho-libertarian essence of Blockchain (Golumbia, 2016; Gerard, 2017), which in its most extreme form believes that governments should exist only to ensure dominant private power over economy and citizens. In this sense, Blockchain might as well represent the latest innovation advocated to restructure power relation that might end up re-centralizing power dynamics and reproducing bias in digitally-mediated contexts.
My research looked at the societal applications of Blockchain and research on the imaginaries that underlie its development, trying to understand what biases may be encoded into blockchain technology, who are the actors that might ultimately benefit from the arrival of this new technology, and which are the political and economic interpretations that drive the implementations of technopolitics. To do so, I relied on a digital ethnography that unpacks different political approaches rooted in the crypto-culture of the broader hacker community.

AREA OF SPECIALIZATION

Digital rights, data justice, digital activism, algorithmic culture, hacker culture, digital methods, online VAWG, qualitative research.

Digital rights, data justice, social movements, digital activism, algorithmic culture, hacker culture, digital methods, gender theory, qualitative research.

PUBLICATIONS

Automating trust with the blockchain? A critical investigation of ‘blockchain 2.0’ cultures (Silvia Semenzin, Alessandro Gandini) | (Global Perspectives, forthcoming)

The use of Telegram for the non-consensual dissemination of intimate images and the construction of masculinities (Silvia Semenzin, Lucia Bainotti) | (Social Media + Society, 2020) | LINK

Internet Archive and Hacker Ethics (blogpost for DATACTIVE, University of Amsterdam) | 2018 | LINK

La comunicación politica en tiempos de crisis | 2015 | LINK

The use of Telegram for the non-consensual dissemination of intimate images and the construction of masculinities (with Lucia Bainotti) | (Forthcoming) | LINK

Internet Archive and Hacker Ethics (blogpost for DATACTIVE, University of Amsterdam) | 2018 | LINK

Hacktivismo y ética hacker: el caso del Cryptoparty | 2016 | LINK