Analyzing the Social Organization of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) Forums

• In Event: Criminal Infrastructures Online: Forums, Ads, and Black Market Dynamics

Abstract

Online communications platforms like social media and web forums have a profound impact on the creation and maintenance of deviant and criminal subcultures. One of the most persistent offender subcultures involves creating and sharing child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Individuals have been actively engaged in this behavior since the earliest days of the modern Internet, yet the literature interrogating the structural and organizational mechanisms of CSAM offender networks is lacking. This study intends to address this gap through the application of Best and Luckenbill’s (1980) sociological framework to elucidate the social organization of deviant groups through an analysis of open-source data on the actors involved in twenty different CSAM groups taken down by domestic and/or international law enforcement. The results are discussed in the context of actor roles and social organization structures, emphasizing the specialized roles particular actors may serve. We identify multiple layers of organization, with forum creators and moderators managing the community and websites, while another layer engages in uploading and downloading CSAM content. This ultimately emphasizes the sophistication of the division of labor and complex group dynamics underpinning CSAM distribution on both the open and darknet.

Authors

• Daniella Ferrante, Michigan State University

• Karen Holt, Michigan State University

• Thomas Holt, Michigan State University