New approaches to dealing with online child pornography

This paper shows how the arrival of the internet has completely transformed and hugely expanded “the market” for child abuse images. The paper makes links between the production and distribution of child pornography and the activities of organized crime. It also suggests the continued availability of these kinds of images on the internet also contributes to a wider sense that the internet is a lawless place. This in turn encourages more diverse criminal elements to think of it as an attractive or easy environment in which to operate. The paper concludes by showing that, in relation to the web, there is an efficient system of “notice and take down” which operates very well in many countries but it argues similar systems need to be deployed in many more.