Inside the dark web: could it be shut down?

The debate surrounding children's access to the dark web is intensifying in the wake of Brianna Ghey's murder.

One of Ghey's teenaged killers, Scarlett Jenkinson, admitted in court to having watched a "mixture of violent stuff, including murder and torture", after downloading an anonymous browser called Tor to access the dark web when she was 14.

The dark web has a "notorious reputation for hosting illegal activities such as drug trafficking, weapons sales and human trafficking", said Jumpstart Magazine. But like almost all technologies, it is a mixture of "good, bad and ugly sides", with positives including providing a "haven" for journalists, activists and others "seeking anonymity for legitimate reasons". 

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What is the dark web and why is it dangerous?

Also known as the dark net, the dark web is "essentially the name given to all the hidden places on the internet",  said Daniel Prince, a professor in security science at Lancaster University, on The Conversation.  It cannot be accessed by traditional search engines such as Google and "prevents people from knowing who you are, what you are doing and where you are doing it".

One of the more common methods of tapping into what The Sun called the "shrouded alleyway of the internet" is anonymous web browser Tor, which hosts roughly 30,000 hidden sites. An acronym for The Onion Router, it was developed by the US military in the mid-1990s to allow spies to exchange information and uses multiple layers of encryption – which converts data into code that can only be read by the sender and authorised receiver.

Although Tor is legal to use in the UK and US, this "relatively small segment of the vast web has become infamous as a hotbed of illegal trade", said the London Evening Standard. Most of the illicit activity takes place in so-called "darknet" marketplaces, "where anonymous users buy and sell everything from guns to drugs to child pornography using crypto-currency".

Earlier this month, a British car mechanic who had a "secret life" as a moderator of a "horrific" child abuse site called The Annex was jailed for 16 years, said The Independent. Another man was sentenced to life in prison in the US in January for overseeing the now-defunct site, which had around 90,000 global users and lay behind a "gateway" accessed through Tor.

The dark web has also become a "home for political extremism activity", said the i news site, with sites that host propaganda material, and forums where violence against politicians is sometimes discussed.

Should and can it be banned?

Despite often hosting criminal content, the dark web "isn't inherently bad", said The Sun. Monitoring of dark web activity can provide early warning signs of potential dangers.

The dark web also "enables people to anonymously access information and resources unavailable to those who live in authoritarian governments, for example, or those in war-torn countries such as Ukraine", said The Register. Organisations including the BBC, Facebook and The New York Times have launched websites on the Tor network, to help activists, journalists and whistle-blowers maintain their anonymity. These "benign and legitimate" uses of the dark web present an "argument to not limit its availability".

An outright ban might "not be ethical or enforceable", said The Sun, as it is "extremely difficult" to prevent access to and monitor use of the dark web.

Campaigners including Ghey's mother have called for the toughening of the Online Safety Bill, which passed into law last October, to try to protect young people from extreme content. 

But there is no legal or technological silver bullet for this "complicated problem", said Ciaran Martin, former CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre. "Technological limitations" mean it is "not really possible" to "just block access to dark web browsers", he told BBC Radio 4's "Today".

Calling for a greater focus instead on teaching young people about the potential dangers, Martin said: "We educate children in schools about sharing indecent images when they're underage, we should be educating them about the dark web as well."