N. 2 (2025)
Dossier - Adolescenti nell’epoca della trasformazione digitale: un approccio sociologico, normativo e culturale

Rules and Codes: Digital Regulation Between Technical Architectures and Vulnerable Subjectivities

pdf (Italiano)
Enrico Maestri
University of Ferrara
Giorgio Manfré
University of Urbino
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54103/1972-5760/30048

Published 2025-11-11

Keywords

  • Digital normativity,
  • Algorithmic regulation,
  • Lex Algorithmica,
  • Computational subjectivity,
  • Vulnerable minors in digital environments

How to Cite

Maestri, E., & Manfré, G. (2025). Rules and Codes: Digital Regulation Between Technical Architectures and Vulnerable Subjectivities. Sociologia Del Diritto, 52(2). https://doi.org/10.54103/1972-5760/30048

Copyright (c) 2025 Enrico Maestri, Giorgio Manfré

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This essay examines, from a socio-legal perspective, the transformation of normativity in the digital society, considering computer code as the primary vector of social regulation. The analysis builds on the code-based approach developed by Lawrence Lessig, while critically reformulating its assumptions through the contributions of Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory and Gunther Teubner’s theory of software agents, with a particular focus on the concepts of normative autopoiesis, collision of partial rationalities, and non-human technical actants.

A taxonomy of techno-digital regulatory models— Lex Informatica, Lex Algorithmica, Lex ex Machina, and Lex Cryptographica — is proposed, and the normative implications of this transformation are explored, assessing the effectiveness of recent European legislative solutions (GDPR, DSA, DMA, AI Act) as attempts to reclaim legal authority within the digital space.

In the concluding section, the focus shifts to the subjective dimension of Code is Law, centering on the figure of the minor as a vulnerable subjectivity, computationally constructed and regulated by performative digital devices. The minor, as an exposed actant and functional node within an opaque normative system, emerges as the critical site for assessing the resilience of law as an institution capable of naming, protecting, and recognizing the person.

The aim is to describe the conformative power of digital environments in shaping minor’s identity and in the reconfiguring legal protection.

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