The internet is becoming like a gigantic coliseum in which the famous and anonymous are judged and served up as a spectacle. A prime example of this is the recent rape allegations against football player Neymar.

The Neymar case is unique because it has clear signals that there has been an "institutionalization" of the internet court. It is as if the internet has normalized itself as a place of judgment. It begins to emerge as a "court case" that is followed by "parties."

The alleged victim makes his/her accusation, which is passed on to the network. The accused elaborates and publishes his/her defense also on the internet. The judgment is then immediate. Witnessed by a crowd of observers who amuse themselves, they then pronounce their unappealable sentence.

In the Internet court, there is no appeal or second instance judgment. It works the same way as the crowd thirsty for implementing justice with their own hands in the classic movie "M, the Vampire of Dusseldorf," 1931.

All this happens at a crazy speed. Legal institutions that should effectively investigate and judge the issue carry on in complete disagreement with the internet spectacle that unfolds.

The Neymar case has been reported with the following sequence of facts. There is the accusation of rape, which has repercussions globally. Then, then the player defends himself. But instead of following the most common playbook in similar cases, in which the accused releases an impersonal note through a press office, defending himself from the charges, Neymar decided to follow another path.

Using the global reach of his social media, he released a video in which he defends himself. In the end, he publishes the "evidence." This evidence is filed not in a legal institution, but in the internet's court. These are private messages and private (edited) photos sent to him by the alleged victim.

From a legal point of view, this conduct is classified as a crime by article 218-C of the Criminal Code, which grants a sentence of one to five years to anyone who "publishes, by any means, photograph or other records that contains a scene of sex, nudity or pornography without the consent of the victim."

Has the player posted the photos blurred or edited, thereby eliminating the criminal conduct? Or does the fact that Neymar posted the photos as a defense mechanism make the crime worse? The only answer so far is that the recipient of the defense video was not the judiciary or a research authority. But, yes, the internet court itself.

This situation puts us all in a dilemma. The legal institutions created in the 20th century succeeded in overcoming the infuriated mob depicted in the movie "M" by institutionalizing the due process, the right of defense, limitation of pen and double degree of jurisdiction.

These same institutions today do not deal with digital mobs. With digital mobs, judgments are immediate. There is no defense. The penalty is relentless and unlimited temporarily. In the Neymar case, both the player and the alleged victim are experiencing the Coliseum. All of us suffer in this situation.

_{Translated by Kiratiana Freelon}

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