Video summary

Childs Play: The Dark Web's Most Disturbing Site

Main summary

Key takeaways

News and Commentary

Surface Web vs. Dark Web (and Tor Anonymity)

The video explains how the surface web differs from the dark web, focusing on how anonymity is enabled by Tor. Because .onion sites aren’t indexed, discovery is difficult.

While most Tor users are legitimate—such as journalists, privacy protectors, and activists—a small fraction of traffic connects to hidden criminal ecosystems. One of those ecosystems included a large child sexual abuse material (CSAM) forum called Child’s Play.

How Child’s Play Worked (and Why It Grew)

  • Created: April 2016
  • Founder: Benjamin Faulkner
  • Username: Warhead (with earlier involvement under Curious Vendetta)

Rapid growth model

  • The forum allowed immediate registration for anyone, unlike other similar forums that required users to upload abuse material to gain access.
  • This lower barrier likely contributed to the site’s rapid expansion.

Organization and content

  • The forum was organized by victim age and abuse type, with sections for:
    • images
    • videos
    • user posts
    • live streams
    • child-torture content

“Privileges” as a reward system

  • User “privileges” functioned like a reward system, encouraging participation and escalation.

Scale at its peak

  • Over a million registered profiles
  • 3,000–4,000 daily active users
  • 100+ known “producers” uploading abuse content directly

Investigators’ Breakthrough and the “Canary”

Law enforcement eventually identified the operators, Benjamin Faulkner and Patrick Faulkner (“Fault”), through mistakes and traceable technical details:

  • Faulkner posted problematic code details on a public programming forum; investigators connected those traces back to him.
  • Fault’s Bitcoin payments were traceable because his Bitcoin wallet was tied to his personal email.

Waiting for a safe opportunity

Investigators reportedly couldn’t move immediately because the operators could wipe the site if they suspected surveillance. Instead, they watched and waited for a high-confidence moment.

FBI raid and the canary mechanism

  • On October 3, 2016, the FBI raided Faulkner’s home and found evidence, including recordings involving a child.
  • Faulkner had built a monthly “canary” check-in message intended to warn users to flee if it stopped—meant to prevent a police takeover.

Investigators’ choice

After gaining access, investigators faced a dilemma:

  1. Shut it down quickly (less intelligence)
  2. Keep it running to continue identifying members and rescuing victims

They chose the second option, maintaining operations under the canary cover.

Police Operated the Site for 11 Months

  • Organization: Task Force Argos (Queensland Police)
  • Method: Took over credentials and ran Child’s Play from Brisbane
  • Duration: 11 months (Oct 2016–Sept 2017)

What they did while running the site

They reportedly:

  • monitored users
  • reviewed posts/messages
  • tracked IPs
  • built profiles
  • allowed the site to continue functioning normally

Maintaining trust with the canary

To keep the canary cover intact, they even posted CSAM images as part of the monthly update, preserving continuity of user trust.

During this time, the video claims content increased substantially (from about 3,000 posts to over 12,000), including very high view counts for newly posted material while police controlled the platform.

Norwegian Reporting and Legal/Ethical Controversy

A Norwegian journalist team—Håkon Heidal and Einar Stangvik of the VG tabloid—investigated Child’s Play for months.

How they located the infrastructure

They used a server-side vulnerability approach to determine the infrastructure location, tracing it to Sydney, then confirming it was leased to Task Force Argos.

Delayed publication, then later disclosure

  • Editors agreed to delay publication to preserve the operation.
  • They later published in October 2017, after discovering the site had been shut down without informing them.

What the reporting alleged

The reporting emphasized that police maintained the world’s largest CSAM site for 11 months, including posting abusive images to keep cover.

Criticism and international human rights concerns

Critics cited:

  • UNICEF legal adviser: violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
  • Amnesty International: tactics unacceptable under human rights law

The video also notes that at the time, Australian law lacked explicit provisions allowing police to possess/share CSAM for investigative purposes—placing the effort in a legal gray area.

Outcomes and Sentencing

Reported impact

The operation reportedly led to:

  • arrests in more than a dozen countries
  • over 900 suspects identified
  • more than 85 children removed from ongoing abuse situations

Sentences

  • Benjamin Faulkner and Patrick Faulkner were sentenced to life in prison for their crimes involving a 4-year-old victim.
  • They also received additional 35 years each for running a child exploitation enterprise.

Central moral tension

The video stresses emotional and moral conflict:

  • investigators’ actions re-victimized children by allowing images to circulate,
  • but also prevented broader harm by identifying offenders and rescuing victims.

Main Argument / Cornerstone Tension

The video frames the case as deeply conflicted:

Law enforcement argues keeping the site online was necessary to identify offenders and rescue children, while advocacy and human rights voices argue the approach crossed a major ethical and legal line by hosting/maintaining CSAM distribution under police control.

Presenters or Contributors

  • Paul Griffiths (Task Force Argos, Queensland Police)
  • John Rouse (Task Force Argos, Brisbane)
  • Benjamin Faulkner / Warhead (also known earlier as “Curious Vendetta”)
  • Patrick Faulkner / Fault
  • Håkon Heidal (journalist, VG)
  • Einar Stangvik (journalist/software investigator, VG)
  • Andrew Colodine (Digital Pacific founder)
  • Tyler Walker (mentioned as an offender, sentenced)
  • Robert Zitzelsberger (mentioned as an offender, sentenced)
  • Andrew Leslie (mentioned as an offender, sentenced)
  • UNICEF legal adviser (cited)
  • Amnesty International (cited)
  • FBI / Homeland Security / Queensland Police Task Force Argos (institutional contributors, described)

Original video