The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight

The internet has been shaped by heteronormative bias, with algorithms, keywords, content moderation, and more suppressing LGBTQIA+ content. Alexander Monea's The Digital Closet explores how this has led to the censorship of nonpornographic content, including sex education and LGBTQIA+ activism. He examines the cultural, technological, and political conditions that put LGBTQIA+ content into the closet, the coders, code, and moderators whose work serves to reify heteronormativity, and the collateral damage in the ongoing war on porn. He also reveals the porn industry's deepest, darkest secret: porn is boring.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 280 pages
Publication date: 02 May 2023
Publisher: MIT Press Ltd

Heteronormative bias is deeply embedded in the internet, hidden in algorithms, keywords, content moderation, and more. Alexander Monea argues that the internet became straight by suppressing everything that is not, forcing LGBTQIA+ content into increasingly narrow channels, rendering it invisible through opaque algorithms, automated and human content moderation, warped keywords, and other strategies of digital overreach. The United States' thirty-year "war on porn" has resulted in the over-regulation of sexual content, which has resulted in the censorship of much nonpornographic content, including material on sex education and LGBTQIA+ activism. Monea examines the cultural, technological, and political conditions that put LGBTQIA+ content into the closet, including the anti-porn activism of the alt-right, Christian conservatives, and anti-porn feminists, the coders, code, and moderators whose work serves to reify heteronormativity, and the collateral damage in the ongoing war on porn, including the censorship of LGBTQIA+ community resources, sex education materials, art, literature, and other content that engages with sexuality but would rarely be categorized as pornography by today's community standards. Monea reveals the porn industry's deepest, darkest secret: porn is boring. Mainstream porn is stuck in a heteronormative filter bubble, limited to the same heteronormative tropes, tagged by the same heteronormative keywords, and consumed by the same heteronormative audience. This has led to a lack of diversity and innovation in the porn industry, and has contributed to the marginalization of LGBTQIA+ individuals and communities. Monea calls for a more inclusive and diverse porn industry that reflects the diversity of the real world, and for the internet to be more transparent and accountable in its handling of LGBTQIA+ content. He suggests that the internet architectures responsible for the heteronormalization of porn, such as Google Safe Search and the data structures of tube sites and other porn platforms, should be redesigned to promote greater diversity and inclusivity.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780262545952