The Paradoxical Darknet : An Ethnographic Study of Community and Social Control on Cryptoforums

The Darknet is often portrayed as an online realm marked by deviance and criminality – a space where “anything goes” and therefore requires policing. Yet its cryptoforums remain comparatively understudied. Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork, this dissertation provides new insights into the internal dynamics of a largely hidden online community. Combining digital observations with 19 interviews – nine with administrators or moderators and ten with regular members – the study explore