Omegle Shuts Down After 15 Years (techcrunch.com) 58
Omegle, a popular online chat service that allowed individuals to connect and chat with strangers, has shut down after 15 years citing growing misuse of the platform, including in committing "unspeakably heinous crimes." From a report: The site, founded in 2009 by a then 18-year-old programmer and high school student Leif K-Brooks, was bootstrapped throughout its existence. Though it waned in popularity over the years, it still pulled about 50 million visitors last month, according to analytics firm SimilarWeb.
As usual (Score:5, Insightful)
including in committing "unspeakably heinous crimes."
This is why we can't have nice things. There's always a human who has to ruin it.
Re:As usual (Score:5, Informative)
It's important to recognize that his closing notice doesn't blame the perpetrators of those crimes for the shutting down of Omegle. He has worked against crime on his site and by his own account delivered evidence to authorities that has landed criminals in jail. The attacks he's writing about and which have made Omegle unsustainable come from people who strive to shut down the platform, and not in the DDoS sense, but legally. Some may argue that the criminals force the hand of those people, but if you think that way, you should read the well thought-out message [omegle.com] which explains the shutdown.
Re: (Score:1)
Ok, I read the whole thing.
It was meant to build on the things I loved about the Internet, while introducing a form of social spontaneity that I felt didn’t exist elsewhere. If the Internet is a manifestation of the “global village”, Omegle was meant to be a way of strolling down a street in that village, striking up conversations with the people you ran into along the way.
Maybe children don't need to talk to strangers on a random global street? This feels kind of obvious. There are so many good programs I can put my kids in to expose them to all sorts of social situations and different cultures and attitudes, setting them out alone to talk to random people in a random city is so dumb.
When they say Omegle shouldn’t exist, they are really saying that you shouldn’t be allowed to use it; that you shouldn’t be allowed to meet random new people online.
When he says "you" is he talking to ME or my 13 year old child? There seems to be a cognitive dissonance throughout the whole post, not differentiating between minor c
Re:As usual (Score:5, Insightful)
Take your "think of the children" argument and shove it where the sun won't shine. Keeping children out of an online site is impossible, so you would have to child-proof the entire internet or require pervasive identification, 80s Soviet Bloc "papers please" style at every server. No child gets on the internet by itself. Parents give them access and then abscond, so the website operator must babysit their offspring? And then what about the weak-minded adults who become victimized by psychopaths? Is that the fault of the website operator too? Did you miss the part where the site was indeed taking steps to find and police abuse? Do you think that crime can be prevented and failure to do a perfect job of that justifies existential threats through lawsuits?
I agree with you! (Score:2)
We should also ban those new-fangled telephones, because they allow people to randomly dial numbers and talk to the random people who answer them. If such "telephone" devices are allowed to exist for more than 5 years, it will obviously corrupt our children, and society will collapse.
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When he says "you" is he talking to ME or my 13 year old child?
If your 13-year-old child is using this, that's on you, as it is on other parents and their children.
Re:As usual (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As usual (Score:4, Insightful)
This. And it becomes painfully obvious when you realize where most of the litigation money ends up.
We don't have a Justice system anymore. We have a Legal system. By lawyers, for lawyers. Liability is the reason you shut down and walk away from 50 million monthly visitors.
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An open source free AI lawyer that's allowed by the courts could go a long way toward reclaiming our justice system back.
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An open source free AI lawyer that's allowed by the courts could go a long way toward reclaiming our justice system back.
We have free public defenders available today, embedded within Miranda rights. They even win cases from time to time.
A free price tag may not guarantee anything, but one thing is certain; if a free or for-profit AI-powered lawyer is what you're up against, you better get that AI-powered defender on your side. Damn good chance you would need it against the vulcan mind-melded powers of 100+ years of legal precedent, tips, tricks, and tools embedded in the Termi-Litigator you're up against.
(Scary thinking abo
Politicians and lawyers can work for good (Score:3, Insightful)
There are places [wikipedia.org] that are practically lawless.
I'd rather have the imperfect system we have in the USA than no legal system at all.
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This. The pendulum can swing too far, both ways though.
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Why do I our choices have to be between shit that stinks and stinky shit?
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Simple. Because otherwise it becomes too obvious that the "argument" given is bullshit.
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There typically is also a priest in there somewhere, as the driving force. Unlike politicians and lawyers, these have learned to be very careful with what they say publicly.
You haven't been on the internet very long? (Score:2)
Let's be brutally honest here. The reason we can't have nice things is because there is always a Lawyer or Politician who has to ruin it. Trolls can be filtered-out and ignored.
The internet has always been ahead of legislators and the court system. Trolls can't really be filtered or ignored, especially at scale, especially when you consider many are state-sponsored. Extremists always find a way to be the loudest voices in the room. Criminals always exploit opportunities...it's what they're known for. From day 1, you probably realized you can't trust anyone online and the more users a service attracts, the greater number of garbage overruns the site. Sorry, my experience has be
Omelette? (Score:2)
How can you make one without breaking some eggs?
omegle(tm) (Score:2)
"Think of the children!"
Re:omegle(tm) (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, that's pretty much the problem.
You should NOT do that with your dick out!
Sounds familiar (Score:1)
The main problem? Actually two... (Score:5, Interesting)
If I have followed the story correctly, there are a couple of problems here - but really, one main problem.
The platform started with a really simple and nice idea: wouldn't it be cool to chat with some random people? This was a huge hit, and many people used it. From the comments on HackerRank, quite a few people made lasting friendships, and even met their life partners.
Over time, he added more capabilities, including video chat. Also over time, and possibly because of these new capabilities, the platform started to have a lot of sexting and sexual content. In the case that seems to have driven the founder to close Omegle, a young girl got caught up in video chats with a pedo. The usual, sordid sequence of events: Each chat, he would threaten to expose previous material, if she didn't send him even more material. I believe he also lured her to other platforms, where the exchanges were easier - Omegle was just where it started. When this finally came to light, the parents needed someone to blame. Someone other than themselves, of course. The big platforms have tons of lawyers, but Omegle doesn't, so target selection was easy.
It seems to me that the real problem here is the American tort system, which is just so broken. The parents shouldn't be able to just sue Omegle without some actual evidence of complicity or guilt. Only in the US do you get these stupid lawsuits. Lean your ladder against a power line, and sue the ladder manufacturer when you get a shock.
Also: This was a massive parenting fail. There are lots of ways this girl could have come into contact with a creep. They failed to impress on her the dangers of the Internet, and they failed to notice the problems she was having once it all started. "Don't walk off with strange people" is important, but so is "Don't chat with people who make you uncomfortable." and so is the kid knowing she could talk to her parents. Suing Omegle is just a way of avoiding looking in the mirror.
Re:The main problem? Actually two... (Score:4, Insightful)
Locating that creep and fully expressing their 2a rights would have been better than suing the site.
Nope. You may love, like, or hate our judicial system, but we are not a country of vigilantism.
Kids: you can be the absolute best parent on the planet but kids are kids. They will still fuck up sometimes. Especially as teens which I'm assuming that girl was.
This sounds a little bit too much like victim shaming.
Re:The main problem? Actually two... (Score:5, Interesting)
>This sounds a little bit too much like victim shaming.
Saying shit can happen to anybody, and it sounds like that's what happened here isn't victim blaming / shaming. It's a statement of fact. Period. Shit happens, and it can happen to anybody. It's observable FACT.
As for actual victim blaming / shaming:
Some actually SHOULD be. Does the dumbass intentionally going into the bad part of town that is known for extreme crime at night deserve to be raped / murdered? No. But it was still a stupid as fuck decision on their part, and they should be held accountable for it. Personal responsibility is a thing.
Like the stupid girl who went to the rape and murder capital of the world to protest all the rape and murder. You will NEVER guess what happened to her, and how everyone was so shocked that it could happen!
I have zero empathy for a moron that goes into a house with a sign that says "This is the house of murder, you WILL be murdered if you go in here. Yes, YOU. We really REALLY mean it, you will be murdered if you go in here." and then proceeds to get themselves murdered. Because "Who could have seen that coming!".
Re: (Score:3)
Ahh yes, the personal attack. The hallmark of "I don't have a valid argument, so I will attack the person I don't agree with".
Hey, by the way, YOU are the one conflating dumbass and moron with women, not me. There was absolutely zero gender connotation before YOU added it to those hypothetical situations. You might want to take a look at your OWN biases a bit closer before you start to point fingers at others.
And if you do something stupid, it doesn't matter if you are a girl, boy, thing, man, or
Re: The main problem? Actually two... (Score:1)
Dumb fuckâ¦
Re: The main problem? Actually two... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
We are definitely a country of vigilantism. Happens all the time. It should probably happen more often given the bullshit nothing sentences bring handed down in recent years for rape, murder, and a list of other life destroying crimes because we're all about criminal rights and fuck the victims these days.
Victim shaming? Omg, no, dumbass. I'm saying the opposite. Do you have kids? Have you ever been a parent? From your response my guess is no or it was a zillion years ago when fire was new and cool.
Yo
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And imagine if they located the WRONG GUY and expressed the second amendment rights on him instead?
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Yeah I'm sure when they have their daughter make an arrangement to have their daughter show up to meet this guy and they show up instead and end his miserable existence that he sent someone else to rape their daughter in his place. Totally, bro! It could happen!
Uh huh.
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Fascinating how you seem to know exactly how perfectly it will all work out.
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"massive parenting fail"? Omegle came about at the beginning of the social media explosion. Parents, teachers and kids were barely aware that sites like this existed, let alone did they have the tools to deal with them.
A pre-teen or teen can grasp the dangers of getting into a car with a stranger much more readily than the dangers of simply talking to a stranger online. Getting into a stranger's car has to happen in a single instance. Online predators don't start with "want some candy?" They start with very
Re: (Score:2)
Suing ... is just a way of avoiding looking in the mirror.
There is a lot of that going on. Also public shaming, accusing people of crimes but never reporting those crimes (because, oops, falsely reporting a crime is a crime), etc. Obviously a lot of people would urgently need that look into the mirror to maybe become halfway decent human beings in the future. Equally obviously they move heaven and earth and blame any and all others they can to avoid that cold, hard look that would actually do something good for them.
My ex-wife and daughters used to go on Omegle (Score:4, Interesting)
Dressed up like clowns or something. Inevitably, more than half of the respondents were guys with their dicks out masturbating.
Probably a good idea to shut it down. No one involved was blameless.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm usually calling "no kinkshaming", but... hey, even I have limits, ok?
Re:My ex-wife and daughters used to go on Omegle (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, clowns are just a step too far.
I think I've heard of Omegle... (Score:2)
I had no idea of what it actually was. Apparently, it was a website of some sort? That never managed to be profitable?
Re: (Score:1)
My girlfriend used to go on there, and when a guy would expose himself, she'd say "It's so cute!! It looks just like guy's a dick, only smaller!"
They would end the chat 100% of the time and we would laugh at how insecure they were.
Re: (Score:1)
HTH.HAND.
Huh? (Score:3)
They shut down because of "unspeakably heinous crimes"?
I thought that was the reason it existed in the first place? Was there anything else anyone did on that platform?
Re: (Score:1)
Yes... the vast majority of people used it to connect with people, and converse with others around the world.
It was a magical place, and the best example of what the internet was excellent at... creating connections.
There must be a rule for this (Score:3)
If you have any public forum, physical or online, there will always be people who will go out of their way to ruin it. These are the people who lick the spoons at buffets.
I'm trying my best to be recovered (Score:2)
But I really think we should have public funded wood chippers to send people like that that through.
Re:There must be a rule for this (Score:5, Insightful)
There is. It's called the Tragedy of the Commons.
Re: (Score:1)
"Tragedy of the unmanaged commons" is what you're talking about.
managed commons are the basis of human society.
Re: (Score:2)
To me, that means one person (or self-funded group) doesn't have the power to fix everyone else's laziness and apathy. (Aside: There's a fine line between protecting communal things and "you people need to obey my rules" dogmatism, Eg. censoring library books and school-books.)
This is one stranger indulging his selfish, dangerous, anti-social habits. Once one arsehole knows it's a safe place for that behaviour, well, "birds of feather" shit.
When one will meet more arseholes than normal people, why v
Why tell us only now? (Score:2)
"unspeakably heinous crimes" are right down my alley.
I am hearbroken... (Score:1)
I am heartbroken!
Yes Omegle was used for some bad things, but it was the crown jewel of the internet! You could instantly be connected to any person, anywhere in the world. At no time in human history before was this possible.
This is one of the greatest losses humanity has ever suffered, and people don't realize it...
from Omegle... (Score:2)
Sexual Abuse Survivor (Score:1)