Online Darkness, however it is achieved, can shroud atrocities. In 2016, ECPAT acknowledged that “TOR has legitimate uses for users who want to maintain privacy circumvent censorship or protect themselves from repressive regimes or targeted monitoring.” This however seems to be shifting, with major figures in the child protection establishment now suggesting that Tor-or at least its ability to host censorship-resistant websites-should be regarded as a failed technology and discontinued. For a long time, the child protection establishment took the same position. Stopping people from seeking them out and sharing them on the Tor network has been a priority for Prostasia Foundation since our formation in 2018, when we commenced our successful CP campaign targeting Tor network users who appear to be seeking information about child abuse websites.īut our CP campaign is about dissuading people from accessing child abuse materials on the Tor network, not about shutting the network down. There is no excuse for adults to produce or share such materials. The circulation of sexual photographs and videos of minors causes victims to suffer guilt, shame, and ongoing vulnerability to the infringement of their privacy as adults, in addition to the physical and emotional harm often done during the production of these materials. But some websites on the Tor network, unfortunately, also host images of child sexual abuse. Even Pornhub recently launched a version of its site on the Tor network, for LGBTQ+ users who live in countries where their sexuality places them at risk of arrest. Some of the websites hosted on the Tor network, such as the BBC News, are designed to thwart media censorship others such as the Wikileaks submission portal are designed to protect whistleblowers.
(You might have heard these described as part of the “dark web”.) But it also provides access to a network of websites on the Tor network, many of which aren’t available anywhere else, that are effectively insulated from censorship. It allows users to browse the Internet without being tracked or identified. The Tor browser is an example of such a tool. It’s an open secret that the battle against illegal sexual images of minors will never be won through surveillance and censorship, for as long as tools to circumvent surveillance and censorship exist.
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