Pedophile communities were saturated with fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Over the past year, several of the biggest child pornography websites of all time have been targeted and shut down. vigilance against child pornography in cyberspace began over a decade ago-long after the pedophiles had arrived online in large numbers-but the federal crosshairs shifted decisively to illegal abuse material on Tor’s anonymity network in 2013. Make the newbie commit a crime in front of everyone, or else he’s out. That’s the equivalent of a street gang requiring a new member to rob a deli or stab a passerby, a tried-and-true method criminals use to separate the wheat from the chaff. Members also have to describe the content of the porn in detail. If at least one of the participants is 12 years old or less, flat-chested, hairless, and engaging in sexual activity, it most likely qualifies.” An application “must contain clearly preteen hardcore material,” the site rules state. Prospective new members now have to actually commit a crime to gain access.Īfter you’ve claimed a nickname on TLZ, new members are required to post 50 to 200 megabytes of hardcore preteen pornography in order to gain access. For much of the four years since its founding in 2010, the site grew into one of the largest trading posts of illegal pornography simply because of its openness. At one time, registering for the Love Zone was as easy as making a Twitter account. The Love Zone, likely the biggest child pornography site on the Deep Web today, has over 50,000 members. Today, the pedophile websites and communities of the anonymous Internet are closing ranks and making it more difficult for new members to enter than ever before. His guilty verdict is the latest in a long string of successful investigations, busts, and convictions that have come as American law enforcement wages a war on child pornography on the Deep Web. When FBI agents burst into the home of Timothy DeFoggi early one morning last year, he was sitting at his laptop downloading child pornography videos over the Tor anonymity network.ĭeFoggi, until then the acting cybersecurity chief at the federal Department of Health and Human Services, was recently found guilty of three child-porn crimes, including solicitation and distribution. Sara Ziff, an American model and filmmaker, recently initiated the Model Alliance to protect and enforce models by devising a Models’ Bill of Rights.Being a pedophile on the Deep Web isn’t as easy today. Some are unpaid or paid only with clothes, and some find themselves in debt - which makes them vulnerable to predation. However, even here in the United States, it’s astonishing how vulnerable young models are to exploitation. Indeed, some young Russian models find international success - as evidenced on the catwalks of New York Fashion Week.
Masha’s fate is currently unknown our recent efforts to contact her have not been successful, but her Facebook page suggests she is still an aspiring model. Arbaugh initially approached us and suggested we make a film, which became a feature-length documentary, “Girl Model.” She wrote to us: “I have been traveling and documenting in Russia and Ukraine the journey of these young girls that become prostitutes and fashion models, or the foggy lines that exist between both.” Our feature documentary, from which this Op-Doc is adapted, traverses these foggy lines.
When we filmed Masha in 2009, the scouts said that these girls - often poor in a society of extreme income inequality - are desirable not just for their looks but because they are malleable and easier to guide and direct. The Op-Doc also introduces Ashley Arbaugh, a former American model turned international model scout, who seeks out teenagers with her Russian comrades. Rural Siberia is a thriving location for scouts hoping to recruit teenage girls as young as 12 and export them overseas. Sometimes hundreds of girls audition at these model castings other times a few dozen show up. In this Op-Doc video we present Masha, a 13-year-old aspiring model who attends an open casting call in Siberia, Russia.