The UK has created a new taskforce to crack down on paedophiles on the dark web

UK spy agency GCHQ and the National Crime Agency have teamed up to tackle crime on the dark web, Motherboard reports.

The dark web is an area of the internet that's not accessible through normal web browsers, and it makes users more anonymous and harder to trace. Because of that, many criminals use the dark web to do things like sell drugs and trade child porn.

GCHQ says that it will now work with the National Crime Agency on a "Joint Operations Cell" that will focus on "online child sexual exploitation."

It's not just paedophiles that the taskforce will be targeting, though. It's also going to look at other crimes on the dark web such as illegal black markets that trade in things like drugs and weapons.

Dark web users reacted to the news of the partnership on Reddit's DarkNetMarkets subreddit. User "uncle_unicorn" said "if they actually do catch a load of peados then I'd be all for it. So long as they leave the druggies alone."

Another Reddit user was skeptical that the partnership will have any meaningful effect on the police's ability catch criminals on the dark web. "They can put out these repetitive press releases and make up new impressive-sounding task forces all they want. The truth is, for the most part, they can't do anything to these onion sites (drug and pedo sites alike) except via undercover infiltration," one user said.