Presentation
Surviving online: Attributes which influence child exploitation website survival
American Society of Criminology
(2015)
Abstract
Objectives: To examine co-offending in an online environment and better understand the steps that occur in the formation of online partnerships. Specifically, what characteristics underscore the online community structure and which associates are selected from the larger network of contacts.
Methods: This study used a repeated measure design to examine the communities surrounding ten ‘seed’ websites involved in the distribution of child exploitation material. Collected using a custom-designed web-crawler, ten networks of 300+ websites were analyzed using community detection techniques.
Results: Community detection analyses revealed that the social structure around illegal websites can be described as being dominated by two large communities hosting varied content –not necessarily matching the seed website. Despite the discovery of multiple, partially overlapping communities, known illegal material was typically found in a single community around the seed website. Reciprocity –our measure of community feel, between community members was substantially higher than within the full network.
Conclusion: This study provides insight into the selection process for online co-offending practices and acts as a starting point for understanding why some are selected for partnership while others are not. As a result, this study has theoretical and methodological implications for both online and offline co-offending research.
Disciplines
Publication Date
November 19, 2015
Location
Washington, DC
Citation Information
Bryce Garreth Westlake and Martin Bouchard. "Surviving online: Attributes which influence child exploitation website survival" American Society of Criminology (2015) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/bryce_westlake/30/