Privacy at a cost: the dark web’s main browser helps pedophile networks flourish, experts say

The Tor network's privacy architecture creates a safe haven for predators to share child sexual abuse material

Millions of child predators are forming sprawling online communities on the dark web using the Tor network, where criminal behavior escalates through the sharing of child sexual abuse material, grooming strategies and normalization of exploitation, experts say. Despite repeated warnings of a growing number of predators taking advantage of it, Tor's developers have taken no action to curb the spread of this content, critics say.

The Tor (the onion router") network is an anonymity-focused internet system that routes traffic through a global web of volunteer-run servers to obscure users' identities and locations. By encrypting data in multiple layers - like that of an onion - Tor makes digital activity difficult to trace.