We were delighted to receive the news that our PhD fellow in Law at NOVA School of Law, Dr Daniela Antão, was awarded the Walter Osswald Bioethics Prize for Best Oral Presentation at the Lusophone Bioethics Researchers Meeting (EIBL 2025), held on 6 June in Aveiro. The prize recognised “her brilliant presentation ‘The Digistopia Book and Its Antidote’,” in the words of the Centre for Bioethics Studies (CEB).
The CEB warmly congratulated Dr Antão for her “interdisciplinary reflection, articulating neuromarketing, social media, neuro-rights and bioethical principles (…) a remarkable example of the critical and scientific renewal we seek to promote.”
The award was presented by Professor Dr Carlos Costa Gomes and Professor Dr António Jácomo, in their respective capacities as President and Vice-President of the CEB, with the support of the University of Aveiro and the Egas Moniz Academic Clinical Centre (CAC-EMHA).
Speaking to WhatNext.law, Dr Daniela Antão explained that this ongoing research seeks to demonstrate that there is a limit to the so-called persuasive techniques used in digital service interfaces. When such techniques disrupt users’ neurological balance and cause harm to health, neuromarketing crosses into the realm of unlawfulness.
Although rooted in an analytical approach to Contract Law and Regulatory Law, the study draws on literature from Consumer Neuroscience and its applied branch, Neuromarketing, exploring core concepts in neuroscience to present the Dystopian Digital Hypothesis (Digistopic Hypothesis) and its counter-hypothesis (Antidote Hypothesis). The latter unfolds into a proposal for recovering civil discourse in contemporary agoras – social media platforms – through seven steps. These seven steps align with the four fundamental principles of Bioethics: Autonomy, Justice, Non-Maleficence and Beneficence.
Structured on this foundation – seven steps and four principles – the study concludes with a proposal for a “360º Public Policy for Health and Freedom in the Use of Social Media”, organised into five pillars. These five pillars incorporate the existing digital regulatory framework but also go beyond it.
Dr Daniela Antão is keen to emphasise that she dedicates this work to Hypatia of Alexandria, one of the greatest intellectual figures of all time – and a woman. A mathematician, philosopher and astronomer, Hypatia grew up in the University and the remains of the Library of Alexandria. She taught in the city’s agora in the late 4th and early 5th centuries, welcoming students of all faiths. In 415, she was brutally murdered by a mob blinded by hatred, incited by dystopian religious narratives that viewed intellectualism as a threat to dogma.
