The Digital Underworld & Dark Forest
It’s not the Dark Web, it’s not about bad things. It’s a sociocultural reaction creating thriving spaces and communities.
From the title of this article, you might be thinking it’s about nefarious doings on the Dark Web or cybercrime. But it is not. This is an article about what the Dark Forest is, why it’s a significant aspect of our digital worlds and the building of communities beyond generic social media platforms. It is an intriguing look at an evolving subculture that’s becoming more mainstream.
So what is the Dark Forest? It is a theory based on the science-fiction novel of the same name by Liu Cixin and applied to digital spaces and communities. The Dark Forest theory suggests that in the vastness of the universe (or in this case, the internet) every civilisation (user), makes two primary assumptions; survival is the primary need of all civilisations and they all keep growing and competing for resources.
Human cultures have long created underworld communities and cities, such as cave dwellings or the more incredible and labyrinthine underground cities from Derinkuyu to Coober Pedy. In a way, they reflect the creation of digital underworlds too.
Applied in the digital world, the theory is that many people are present online and watching, but they are quiet, mostly just observing because they feel vulnerable to attack or criticism. Like the Dark Forest, everyone is armed (such as harming others online through bullying), everyone is silent (so they don’t draw attention) and everyone is also nervous about potential threats.
Yet people have figured out ways to engage more publicly while attempting to remain safe and are finding ways to build safe communities and collectives. A more obvious and well known example would be those who participate in Anonymous, a decentrazlied collective based around an ideology, but no individual wanting specific attention brought on themselves.
There are a growing number of digital third places and safe havens. An example of third spaces would be independently run Discord communities, closed stud groups with smaller groups of people that know one another, Reddit subreddits with more private elements that have verified user systems.
Digital safe havens include industry-specific Telegram groups, private Notion communities, academic Discord servers, peer learning on platforms like Maven and invite only portfolio sharing communities. These spaces have explicit rules, etiquette and behavioural norms, much like any culture. Some bridge the space between private and public.
The rise of these “underworlds” that few rarely see is a sociocultural reaction to the perceived and real failures of platforms to effectively govern them. Which is not an easy task. And there are many people that simply prefer more tight-knit, smaller communities.
They’re important to society for several reasons. They provide alternatives to algorithm drive public platforms. Enable the development of social norms away from public digital toxicity. These smaller communities often form more meaningful relationships that extend into the physical world. They also help diaspora communities sty connected to their homelands.
They can be psychologically beneficial to those who need such supports and prefer a more structured, known safer place. Digital third places can also act as cultural incubators for new ideas and phenomena and serve as archives for community knowledge and cultural artefacts. And perhaps most importantly enable authentic opportunities for self-expression.
While there are such places and spaces in the Dark Web, they’re for the more malignantly minded types and have their own set of norms and behaviours but are rarely safe. As the saying goes, there is no honour among thieves.
We should see the digital underworld and the Dark Forest as a sociocultural reaction and reflection on an ancient human behaviour of navigating between “safe” and “dangerous” spaces. They are part of our modern way of forming folklore. These digital underworlds exist in a simultaneous state of presence and absence. They are liminal and reflective of our real-world cultural norms.
They offer a form of storytelling where sometimes the myths they create spill out into the real-world. When people active in the Dark Forest participate in public platforms they’ll often use code words that others will recognize, they may use strategic ambiguity such as vague-posting, metaphorical terms and plausible deniability.
It is impossible to say what the size of the digital underworld is, but it can be suggested it is very large and growing. For many it is an argument against surveillance capitalism and a dislike of how many open platforms are run
They have also appeared because the dominant social media platforms and channels misunderstood human behaviours, but more importantly, how cultures and subcultures work. Those that do, such as the creators of Discord, Telegram and such have found a successful business niche. Meta in part understood this with their acquisition of WhatsApp.
For those in the world of public and foreign policy, understanding these subcultures can be important to developing civic engagement such as through digital ambassadors. Technologies such as blockchain decentralized tools will foster the growth of more of this Digital Underworld. As always, culture is the ultimate arbiter of technology.