‘I used to work in the anti-child pornography and child sex tourism team of the police, where you also have to look at images of abuse’, says criminologist and forensic psychologist Madeleine van der Bruggen. ‘Before you’re allowed to do that work, you undergo thorough screening. Not everyone wants to join such a team. You need a strong internal drive to want to tackle this problem, which in my case, was more important than the stress you experience when seeing certain images.’

It’s also mandatory that you regularly speak to a psychologist, explains Van der Bruggen. ‘The most important thing for me was the informal social control among colleagues. We really kept a close eye on each other. If a colleague was struggling with what we were exposed to, we would quickly pick up on it.

Van der Bruggen is now a senior researcher at the National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings and Sexual Violence against Children. On Wednesday last, she obtained a PhD for her research on dark web forums centred around child sexual abuse. ‘As a member of the police force, I’d already noticed that suspects were becoming increasingly active there. We started focusing on that more and more.’

OFTEN MEN

The dark web is the anonymous part of the internet that can only be accessed with special software, such as The Onion Router, more commonly known as Tor. ‘This way, your internet traffic remains anonymous, which makes tracking difficult.’

Although people can have very good reasons to use the dark web, it is also a marketplace for illegal activities. Anything can be found there: drugs, phishing tools or contract killers. ‘There are also networks where people exchange and download child sexual abuse material.’

Van der Bruggen mapped out the way these forums operate and what members do on the networks. She examined a lot of data; in particular, posts and threads from six different forums. ‘Collectively, these networks had more than 600,000 active members, and the datasets contained approximately 760,000 posts in total.’

Special police teams use such data in their investigations. ‘At my previous job as an investigating officer, I also looked at and studied that data. As a researcher, you can’t do that, at least not legally and certainly not ethically. That makes research difficult, which makes intensive cooperation between police and science essential.’

Van der Bruggen analysed the communication traffic between members of the forums. ‘I don’t know who the people behind the nicknames are, but other research has shown that it’s often men. And as a police officer, I only ever encountered male perpetrators.’

The structure of these networks is not very different from that of other forums on the regular internet, Van der Bruggen explains. ‘You can click on different topics just as you would on a forum for a sport or a hobby.’ Members are not just concerned with finding images of children. In addition to threads like '9yo girl dances and strips', 'boys art photo series', 'anyone have more of this girl???? Pleeeeeaase' and much more explicit topics, there are also sections on politics and sports.

Interestingly, it is not all about financial gain. Of course, people are profiting off abuse too, but that happens in other places. It’s an in-crowd of like-minded people. They use the forums to collect more material but also to meet each other. If you share images, others reward you in turn. That distinguishes this criminal behaviour from other forms of illegality. The social interaction between the members is very important. For a large number of them, this is an alternative reality where they can meet people who share the same feelings. They’re seeking support from each other.’

IN-CROWD OF LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE

Still, there are also members who produce material themselves. ‘They also refer to that. Sometimes you find out about it through an arrest. I didn’t focus on that in my research. The overlap is not very large, according to other studies.’

Of course, not everyone is as active on the forums. ‘Lots of members are not fully participating. These “lurkers” are forum members who hardly communicate, but who do browse. A very large group only comes online occasionally.’ Van der Bruggen discovered that these lurkers do indeed download images of child sexual abuse on a very frequent basis.

‘For our research into a specific forum, we had a very unique dataset. Not only were the posts available for us to read, but we could also track browsing members on the network. We saw which links they clicked on and were thus able to establish that they had downloaded images for which we are certain this constitutes a punishable offence.’

The research shows that 93.6 percent of forum members download child pornography. As such, the presence of lurkers on the forum fuels and facilitates supply and demand. ‘That’s truly an important finding.’

The so-called ‘escalators’ are also important. ‘They are members who become more and more active. It would be nice if we could detect this group as early as possible.’

Nevertheless, it remains difficult to determine whether the dark web has caused an increase in abuse. ‘It has opened up this material to a larger group of people; the anonymity lowers the threshold. It’s possible that the number of perpetrators has grown. On the other hand, it means that we see more and that more is being reported, that nuance is important. It also doesn’t necessarily mean that more material is being produced. A lot of older images are reposted.’

Van der Bruggen also examined how members try to gain each other’s trust. ‘The networks are based on mutual respect and recognition. There is less competition than on other cybercriminal networks. There, people bid against each other: “Who is the smartest hacker?”’

That trust is important for police officers operating there undercover. ‘You see members on the forums explicitly contemplating: “How much of myself do I reveal to gain the other person’s trust?” How much do I show of my own personality? It’s all about the social characteristics we’re familiar with in everyday life: having a sense of humour and being helpful, for example.’

MYSTERIOUS PLACE

The research will also be helpful to treatment providers of perpetrators. ‘Specialists who focus on this target group are very knowledgeable about vice problems and psychology. However, they know far less about what happens on the dark web. I’m often told that it’s a mysterious place to them. And yet, it can teach you a lot about this group.’

With her research, Van der Bruggen hopes to help both police and treatment providers. ‘Of course, the ultimate goal is to stop this form of crime and protect the children. But I find it troubling that this subject has become so taboo that it prevents people from seeking the help they need. We need more openness. This is an uncomfortable truth, but as a society we shouldn’t look away from it.’

There is a helpline called Stop It Now for people who are concerned about their internet behaviour and possible feelings towards children. ‘This is an important prevention tool. People panic when this topic is brought up, especially if you want to talk about prevention. Having a mature debate about it is complicated.’

Madeleine van der Bruggen, Child sexual abuse material networks on the Darkweb. A multi-method approach.