Type of site | Child pornography sharing |
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Available in | English |
Launched | August 2009 |
Current status | Offline (as of May 2015) |
Playpen was a darknet child pornography website that operated from August 2014 to March 2015.[1][2] The website operated through the Tor network which allowed users to use the website anonymously. After running the website for 6 months, the website owner Steven W. Chase was captured by the FBI. After his capture, the FBI continued to run the website for another 13 days as part of Operation Pacifier.
When it was shut down in March 2015, the site had over 215,000 users and hosted 23,000 sexually explicit images and videos of children as young as toddlers.[2]