The study I linked had the proportion of hidden service visits to paedophile sites at around 80% of the total.
It's such an alarming figure, it really should be in the Tor documentation as a warning of what you'll actually be enabling by running a node.
This is a good point, but more on that below.
> It's such an alarming figure, it really should be in the Tor documentation as a warning of what you'll actually be enabling by running a node.
No, because even according to the article they are not even confident in their results. From DDoS attacks to law enforcement visiting those websites, it is impossible to assess.
> "We do not know the cause of the high hit count [to child abuse sites] and cannot say with any certainty that it corresponds with humans," Owen admitted in a response to the Tor Project shared with WIRED, adding that "caution is advised" when drawing conclusions about the study's results.
Human rights activists around the globe are relying on such infrastructure to have a safer way to communicate with the outside world and denounce actions of their governments. They are by far not the people who would click on the most hidden services, so they will be under-represented on such studies.
Sure encryption is used for unlawful behavior, but if you ban encryption and/or Tor, you will just hurt the people that need it the most while criminals will just find an alternative.