A flickering fluorescent light above the toilet cubicle buzzed like a dying wasp trying to file a complaint. The toilet cubicle door was carved with the poetry “Chloe is a slag”, at least six times in various dialects of despair. I sat there, contemplating whether the graffiti or the stench held the most interesting backstory.
The dark web – a phrase so demonised it might as well arrive in a trench coat telling you that the weather is usually warm this time of year, is, believe it or not, just, the internet, but without the nosy neighbours and cookie consent banners that feel more like veiled threats than actual choices. It’s what the internet was meant to be before it got commodified into a TikTok-fuelled dopamine brothel.
But we paint over it with pornography and gun dealers, child traffickers and political dissidents. We ignore that one of those is not like the others. Admittedly, the name doesn’t help, in a society raised on Pixar morals, “dark” means bad. And people refuse to see what it protects – only what it hides. And so they say it is evil, not because it is, but because it could be, as Alexa listens to them sob through a takeaway – so suspicious of privacy, seeing anonymity not as protection, but as confession. “Why would you need to hide?” they ask – while happily installing apps that monitor their menstrual cycles, step counts, and bowel habits like a passive-aggressive flatmate with a clipboard.
But consider whistleblower drop-boxes, dissident forums, dark web versions of the New York Times, the BBC, ProPublica, the collective murmur of those desperate to be heard without being found. That’s what the dark web is – a whisper in a world of shouts. A place where information hides, not because it’s dirty, but because someone powerful decided it shouldn’t be seen.
In places where freedom is rationed like cigarettes in a prison, where reading the wrong news gets you a free holiday in a windowless basement. These places exist so truth can dodge censorship like a drunk at a urinal – clumsily, but with purpose.
Using the dark web is not illegal in the UK. The law does not condemn exploration, only action. The Computer Misuse Act 1990 is the border patrol, and like any terrain, legality lies in what you do there – not where you stand. If you’re new and interested to know more, then check out the Tor Project.
Because the dark web isn’t evil, it’s just private. And if that scares you, well, maybe that says more about the world you’ve grown used to, than the one the dark web is trying to protect.
:: REFERENCES ::
- The Tor Project – Official Site
- Computer Misuse Act 1990 – UK Legislation
Top comments (0)