The Darkest Web Storyville on iplayer

[NotNowFGS]

JFC they walk amongst us....Absolutely must see documentary about paedophilia and the dark web. I think it was uploaded just yesterday - I happened to notice it. Nothing but admiration for the law enforcement officers across the world working in this field. The extent of it is truly jaw droppping.

Here's the link https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002rls3

There are somethings I’d rather not know…imagination is bad enough. ☹️
What a sick and twisted world we are living in.

I watched this last night. I used to be a child protect social worker, and I was still appalled and shocked.
How those police officers looked at it all everyday I'll never know. It was appalling. Not a bit surprised the one was divorced and had a breakdown.
Brilliant documentary but extremely upsetting.

There was a TV programme a couple of years about UK police pursuing men who abuse children online, and in person if they can do so [it doesn't always stay online].

One of the police officers said that if they arrested every man in the UK who committed online child sex abuse offences, there wouldn't be enough prison cells in the whole country to house them all.

In one week in January alone, the NCA said it and police forces across the UK arrested 252 people,118 of whom were charged, and safeguarded 407 children. It added that this level of action was now taking place regularly.
"The scale and prevalence of the CSA [child sexual abuse] threat has increased in severity and complexity over the years," the NCA said in a statement, describing it as "one of the most significant threats across the UK".
"On a daily basis, officers at the NCA and across policing are assessing some of the most obscene child abuse imaginable. And this is not hidden in the dark web – it's being shared on social media and is accessible on the clear web as well for anyone to see," said Rob Jones, the NCA's director of general operations.
Child abuse on the rise and becoming more complex, crime agency says

Every type of degraded and abusive act and/or practice you can possibly imagine, and many that you can't, are going on everyday. The internet has multiplied such tendencies and we see men, all sorts of men - of every age and background descending into utter degradation and 'evil'. To sit and watch this sort of stuff day in and day out must do serious damage to your mental health and sense of normality.

Storyville is an absolutely excellent series of documentaries. There is not one badly made episode, across all manner of topics.

Agree, Storyville is excellent. I saw that one advertised, but I don't think I could watch it.

This BBC article ⬇is interesting, is it related to the Storyville?
How investigators tracked down an abused child by analysing the bricks they could see on her wall.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2gn239exlo

Brilliant detective work- and showed their very human feelings during the interviews
I shouldn't be surprised or shocked by the very depths of human depravity out there but I am. It's rife. Vile.

A slight derail but it is related:

some of the online child sex abuse material is generated by children themselves: as well as malicious messaging from boys to girls, dick pics and the likes, 'sexting' between children seems to have become almost acceptable - It's just the way young people communicate these days, we must move with the times'.

Sending naked images of a child is of course illegal, but when the image has been sent by the child themselves, they are not considered to have broken the law, but are considered in need of support and protection. Especially if the other 'child' they sent sexualised pictures to is in fact an adult paedophile..

That's one unfortunate consequence of giving children unrestricted access to their own phone.

I think I'll give this one a miss, I've watched the Michael Jackson ones on channel four, Lover Liar Predator and Confessions of a Killer on iPlayer and I think I need some comedy on my telly.
I admire the people who try and police this. I know I couldn't do it.

Yes it's about the same story

I haven't seen the documentary yet, the article was astounding. The dedication of those police officers is extraordinary. I found details of the abuse very hard to read.

I've just finished watching...and the one thing that stands out for me is the youth of these abusers. When we tend to think of paedophiles I think we tend to think of middle aged men, but increasingly we are looking at young men in their twenties.

I think the same goes for men with AGP - who then 'transition'. Again we tend to think of middle aged men, married and with children who have been cross dressing all of their adult lives.......but I suggest that most young male transitioners are now motvated by AGP ( they are not of the homosexual variant which you might expect to see).The internet and access to on-line pornography is not only compounding deviant sexual behaviours, but even creating them in the first instance.

It also makaes me think of those men recently found to be working in child day care nurseries who have been sexually absuing children. One of them was only in his twenties, and to unsuspecting eyes he looked like a good looking, fresh faced young man who you may automatically trust with your children. Not so!

If they’re young then they’ve grown up steeped in an internet with no guard rails.
There are paedophiles whose aim is to deliberately introduce porn to children online. That’s what they get off on, breaking children’s minds and turning them into porn users and creators so the cycle continues. It’s no surprise this includes CSA.

And daily we see posters here defending their children’s right to have an open access smart phone, or a tablet.

I won’t be able to watch this programme, but salute to those who try to stem this tide.

One of the police officers said that if they arrested every man in the UK who committed online child sex abuse offences, there wouldn't be enough prison cells in the whole country to house them all.

Guess we should just shoot them then. I wouldn't have a problem with that.

I never thought they were all middle aged. Maybe because the paedophile I came across when I was 4 was an older brother of a friend in his late teens (maybe early 20s.) I didn't know his age but he wasn't a "dad man" he was a "big boy" (my 4 yr old rhetoric)
They always start young I think.
Later on I knew what is now understood to be an AGP who was related to me, he was 25 at the time

Edited to add I was 4 in 1975. So a long time ago. Well before the Internet and easy access to porn

It is unimaginable how these officers deal with having to see that kind of material.

I suppose the reward of saving those children is what makes it worth it, but to live with what you've seen in your head for the rest of your life... I can't even begin to think how horrific that is. You must have to be incredibly strong.

I'm interested in the percentage of these young men who are autistic and who have spent a lot of time online throughout adolescence when more socially skilled young men were out interacting with other teens. Sex can become a 'special interest' to some of these young men and children are seen as 'safer' 'objects' than teens or adults. I think if people understood how young people interact online they would be horrified.

I think that when future sociologists look back on the 2st century, they'll struggle to understand that despite all the warnings that smartphones are not toys and shouldn't be given to children under 16
In 2023, 60 percent of UK children aged between eight and 11 reported having a smartphone and so did almost 100 percent of UK teens.
Mobile app usage of children in the United Kingdom - statistics & facts | Statista

Yes, I did consider that myself. Young men who have few social skills, no friends and spend all of their lives gaming or on -line. The children they abuse are not real human beings to them, they are simply characters or parts in their fantasy. There is obviously zero empathy. Brings to mind the recent Canadian trans identified teen who went on a shooting spree killing nine and injuring dozens.

It also makes me think of the report into young Russian men flying drones and killing civilians in Ukraine. We are allowing young people to grow up seeing actual human civilians as NPCs in a video game. The lack of empathy and basic humanity is astonishing. Interestingly it was a young woman coordinating their activities. For young men unable to interact with women because of low social skills she's like a variant of the classic honeytrap. A way to gain kudos from a young woman, just a really lethal twist.

Your first paragraph - that's exactly what I was thinking. 2 of my dc are older than 2 of the predators - I don't know why that shocked me, but it did.

I had to watch this in bursts - it was truly harrowing. The men and women who dedicate their lives to finding and catching these people are incredible. I think it said at the end that there are something like a million users of these forums. The number is just increasing all the time. Awful.

I think I’m going to have to watch this in segments. I started tearing up after 10 minutes.

I really admire the law enforcement teams working to catch these evil men. I’m in awe of how they manage to cope with what they have to see and what they have to process as part of their jobs.

My brother uses the dark web. Claims privacy /data /government etc 🙄.

Do you mean he visits drug dealing/ forged document/other criminal services & activities sites ie; the Dark Web, or just, "he uses Tor & a VPN"?

Edited for missing word

I remember reading a few years ago that UK police were so under-resourced in this area that they had to rely on whatever seized computers they had that were no longer required in evidence & could not be returned to their owners.
Investigation of CSA ought to be a priority allocation of POCA resources.

Ha ha! I dont believe he is doing anything illegale, but yes he said vpn and tor. Is that the dark web?