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Whether you’re an avid tech junkie or a casual Facebook user, you can’t escape the internet’s grasp, and with its second season Showtime’s docu-series about the web has become more relevant than ever. Whereas Season 1 of Dark Net focused on the unknown dark side of technology, Season 2 is far more personal, exploring the consequences of everyday internet use. The result is one of the most chilling shows on television.
Dark Net was created by Mati Kochavi and produced in part by Kochavi’s company Vocativ, a tech and media company that uses data-mining to explore the deep web and generate news stories. The company largely focuses on the 80 percent of the internet that’s out of reach for normal search engines. The show’s first season served as a sort of explainer on how the same sites that produce such positive things, like methods to document police brutality and ways for couples to find fulfilling relationships, can result in online horror stories, like child pornography rings, revenge porn, and trolling that results in violence. If Dark Net‘s first season was an introduction to the dark corners of the web, Season 2 is a deep dive with a disturbingly personal angle.
“I think that Season 2 is much more relatable and much more hard hitting,” Adi Kochavi, president of Vocativ Films and executive producer for Dark Net, said. “I guess if you think about it this way, in Season 1 the Dark Net was more of a place — the deep web and the darknet were places. They were a part of the internet we could access … in Season 2, the darknet is no longer a place but rather a metaphor for what we’re all doing.”
According to Kochavi, that metaphor extends to conversations surrounding internet privacy and our increased lines of technology. “Season 2 is all about the things we do openly, and we just don’t realize the consequences,” she said. The show’s second season is also more philosophical than its first, asking more questions about the implications of current technology. Kochavi explained it was important for the series to give viewers enough information so that they could formulate their own opinions.
“I think a lot of people don’t realize the consequences of what they’re doing. Oftentimes when I speak to people about privacy and the fact that we’re sort of sharing everything, they tend to say ‘Well, I don’t really care. I have nothing to hide,’” she said. “I think that one of the things that Season 2 does is that it shows people that there really are consequences, even if you have nothing to hide.”
Each episode of the new season tackles a broad technological subject, from virtual reality to bitcoins. However, each episode takes care to explore its subject through a positive and negative version of the same technology. “That’s something that takes a long time and is actually something we discuss intensely,” Kochavi said when asked about what goes into the show’s process of pairing narratives. “We always have a list of stories for each episode, and we just try to see what works really well. What either creates a really interesting and compelling contrast or what’s actually pretty similar, or what brings together a character who is not controversial at all and what brings together a character who is.”
For example, the episode “My Justice” starts by focusing on how an amateur online investigation into a murder has drastically changed Keenan Vanginkel’s life. This seemingly innocent man’s story is paired against one of the most controversial figures in internet culture, a hacker from Anonymous. One story follows an innocent man who’s been forced into controversy because of a community’s need for justice, and the other explores the moralistic mentality that accompanies the high-grade and invasive form of hacking the collective is known for, at least from one member’s perspective. “We really try to show the positive and the negative aspects of these technologies, A) to show both sides because technology is a double-edged sword. But B) to give people a chance to decide for themselves,” she said.
Though the show is packed with thought-provoking and disturbing stories, there are still some narratives that didn’t make the final cut. One of those cut pieces that Kochavi was especially interested in was a story for the “My Money” episode. “We originally wanted to interview bitcoin miners in Venezuela who are really risking a lot to mine for bitcoin because money there is so worthless and bitcoin still retains value. So it was a really, really interesting story of survival that you wouldn’t think of because bitcoin is typically associated with the darknet and illicit activities, and this was a completely different take on it,” she said. “I’m definitely holding onto this idea.”
One of the show’s strengths is how it’s able to simplify its tech-focused stories without becoming condescending. Dark Net is a series a tech-obsessed journalist and an Internet Explorer devotee can watch together and both will likely walk away having learned something new. “We did want to appeal to both sides,” Kochavi said.
“What we did was we provided that extra layer of data, information, and context and really showed where this information was coming from and how we got to it … for those interested in it. But on the other hand, we made sure that the stories remained very human stories, very emotional stories,” she said. “I think that’s how we managed to speak to both audiences.”
Of course when you’re talking about a show about the philosophical implications of technology, the first series that comes to mind is Black Mirror. Kochavi has heard those comparisons before and thinks that Charlie Brooker’s show is one of the smartest series about tech out there. However, there’s one huge difference between the two shows. “Black Mirror is 30, 40 years down the road — or at least I hope so. Dark Net is now. We’re not talking about anything futuristic. We’re talking about something that may develop into something that is much more terrifying in the future, but it’s already happening now,” she said. “That’s a big difference.”
New episodes of Dark Net premiere on Showtime Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET.
