La repressione delle offese online alla reputazione: tra anomia di contesto e anomia normativa

The advent, and continuously accelerating evolution, of new ICTs (Information & Communication Technologies) place increasing strain on the way in which our criminal legal system has traditionally offered protection to honour, reputation, and other personality rights. On the one hand, the inherently indeterminate nature of the “microsystem” consisting of the offences of insult and defamation, as well as of their protected interests, has enabled a degree of interpretive flexibility, capable of accommodating – without excessive effort – typologies of aggression that were unforeseeable for the 1930 legislator, as new media progressively became available. On the other hand, the same technological transformation has rendered impossible to ignore the overall irrationality of these provisions, both in themselves (even more so after the 2016 decriminalization of insult) and in their relationship with newly created offences that have accumulated over recent years (most recently with Law No. 132/2025 concerning artificial intelligence). This chapter examines the current regulatory framework governing insult and defamation in order to highlight its (apparent) strengths and its structural weaknesses, whether inherent or connected to the evolution of the information ecosystem brought about by the digital “fourth revolution”. It also seeks to propose, from a criminal-policy perspective, a few suggestions for reform, aimed at rationalising the system and enhancing the effectiveness of provisions designed to protect fundamental personality rights.