The Deep, Dark Web

Names can have a lot of power. What somethings called can have grave consequences such as the names "Greenland" and "Iceland", originally devised as a diversionary tactic to send would-be enemies to the less habitable of the two North Atlantic islands. Names can be used to both glorify and defame, sometimes in turns and also over time. Vincent Van Gogh is now known as a genius and the father of Impressionism but was more commonly referred to as "the mad dog" in his own time. A reputation which made it impossible for him to sell a single painting in his lifetime. Despite his doting brother, Theo, being an art dealer. I this age of digital over-sharing and social narrative by mob consensus, the process has rather reversed. What were once neutral, descriptors giving way to names that are calculatingly sinister, to be exploited by the unscrupulous to further their own ends. A key example of the is the so-called "Dark Web."

(The 21st Century's "Big Bad Wolf"?)

Sometimes referred to as the "Deep Web",  the terms used seemingly interchangeably, this internet under the Internet had become the new digital bogey-man, like subRedddits and 4Chan before it. Except unlike these publicly available,  traditional web-sites, subject to search-engines and the like, the "Deep Web" has the disadvantage, at lest in terms of its reputation, of being secret. Requiring specialized software to even get to it and then some pretty savvy de-encryption skills to navigate your way through. The network's anonymity, while being its greatest asset for those using it, is also the cornerstone of the dog-whistle attacks against it, by everyone from conservative politicians (many of whom would not know a web-server from a serving tray, as evidenced by the recent tet-a-tet between Republican lawmakers and billionaire boy-genius Mark Zuckerberg) to those hawking anti-virus software, using vague threats about the "Dark Web" to scare people into thinking they need stronger system security.

When something is largely unknown, it is easy to conjure the worst possible image of it. There being precious little ready evidence to the contrary. A tradition of judging something from a position of pig ignorance dating back to the Jazz Age. Moral were regularly stoked by tales of the allegedly depraved goings at the "underground" clubs of the time. The most salacious of which are tame by today's standards even if they were true which most of them simply were not.

There is also the more visceral, personal fear of the unknown so vividly displayed in the original Grimm Fairytales. All of which were meant as cautionary tales, many took place in the deep, dark, woods and dealt with the terrors assumed to dwell therein. From child-eating cottage witches to big bad wolves.

The simple fact of the matter is, the majority of  those most loudly heralding warnings against the "Dark Web" have little idea of what it actually is and havecertainly never been there. Very few actually have. As is its designed intention.  


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