Yes, which is something a lot of advocates has been pushing for. Put the massive resource currently allocated at blocking and use it to go after the producers. The consumers, the technology, the platforms, all those are of limited interest when the real goal is to rescues of children and stopping sex offenders. With limited resources police should prioritize efforts where it has the biggest positive effect on people and not where it has the biggest political effect.

For a year... the largest dealer. Imagine if the DEA secretly busted a whole cartel, and turned into the largest producer and exporter of cocaine for a year!!!

>In this case surely getting the producers is significantly outweighs being a dealer for a bit.

I agree. The producers were abusing children, lots of them. Running the site allowed the police to identify a lot of the producers, so they can be arrested and locked up.