New techno-political regimes of domination: the regulation of civil liability of big techs

Abstract

In the face of a new technopolitical regime of domination led by Big Techs, this article examines the role of the State in regulating the civil liability of digital platforms. The research seeks to understand how the Brazilian legal framework responds to the algorithmic capture of subjectivity and the resulting informational damages. Based on theoretical diagnoses such as techno-feudalism, psychopolitics, and surveillance capitalism, the study highlights the consolidation of platforms as private sovereignties that organize social interactions, shape behaviors, and extract economic value from everyday life. The qualitative research, grounded in bibliographical and documentary review, demonstrates that although the Brazilian Internet Civil Rights Framework (Marco Civil da Internet), the General Data Protection Law (LGPD), and recent Supreme Court (STF) rulings represent significant advances, they remain insufficient in addressing the opaque and concentrated logic of digital platforms. As a result, the study concludes that the European experience, through the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, offers valuable references for building a democratic legal architecture capable of subjecting algorithms to public oversight mechanisms and ensuring the protection of human dignity in the digital age.