tl;dr - a small number of bad actors are causing too much trouble, so the owner is pulling the plug on Omegle rather than continuing to fight uphill against it. The post is also a sad farewell letter where Leif reminisces a bit about the old internet and how people used to actually use it to not be total assholes to strangers all the time
Relevant bits:
In recent years, it seems like the whole world has become more ornery. Maybe that has something to do with the pandemic, or with political disagreements. Whatever the reason, people have become faster to attack, and slower to recognize each other’s shared humanity. One aspect of this has been a constant barrage of attacks on communication services, Omegle included, based on the behavior of a malicious subset of users.
The battle for Omegle has been lost, but the war against the Internet rages on. Virtually every online communication service has been subject to the same kinds of attack as Omegle; and while some of them are much larger companies with much greater resources, they all have their breaking point somewhere. I worry that, unless the tide turns soon, the Internet I fell in love with may cease to exist, and in its place, we will have something closer to a souped-up version of TV – focused largely on passive consumption, with much less opportunity for active participation and genuine human connection. If that sounds like a bad idea to you, please consider donating to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that fights for your rights online.
I never used the site but as far as I’ve seen, whenever you encounter an asshole the only option was to skip to the next person. Was there a report button? A voting system might have worked, where down voted people or bots would be isolated and excluded from the community.
Not sure that existed, but how would it work? There were no accounts and IPs are ephemeral.
Probably UUIDs based on fingerprinting the browser/machine. With enough js there’s usually enough to qualify a person’s activity as unique even with minor changes regarding updates or whatever. You can mitigate it by changing user agent strings or disabling some/all js or site permissions, but they can also block you from using the service for doing so, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Should have left the site up and sold it to the DOJ. It’s a steady stream of chomos for them to arrest and use the site like hireahitman.com turned out.
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This comment could have been formulated in a non-aggressive tone, as a question or opinion, or reasoned criticism. Instead they chose a passive aggressive tone.
Really ironic and sad in the context of this topic, and right below the quotes like
people have become faster to attack, and slower to recognize each other’s shared humanity.
This being the internet, allow me to point out to you that also people have become faster to attack, and slower to recognize each other’s sharing of your mom.
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I haven’t been on omegle in years, how bad was the problem? Does it warrant labeling everyone who used the site for good reasons a pedo?
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How is it bad faith to suggest not labeling millions of people as pedo who aren’t? There’s plenty of genuinely human / funny content on YouTube from over the years of stuff that happened on omegle. It sucks that the platform is evaporating. But I agree, if there was a huge problem of pedos and predators that couldn’t be controlled closing is probably for the best. People that remember their random adventures on omegle positively and are talking about ways this could’ve been controlled / avoided aren’t pedo sympathizers. They’re just nostalgic. No one here is suggesting to fortify a hangout space for pedos. Everyone is trying to keep those people out.
And no self awareness in sight.
The battle for Omegle has been lost, but the war against the Internet rages on. Virtually every online communication service has been subject to the same kinds of attack as Omegle; and while some of them are much larger companies with much greater resources, they all have their breaking point somewhere. I worry that, unless the tide turns soon, the Internet I fell in love with may cease to exist, and in its place, we will have something closer to a souped-up version of TV – focused largely on passive consumption, with much less opportunity for active participation and genuine human connection. If that sounds like a bad idea to you, please consider donating to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that fights for your rights online.
I don’t see how an organization that fights for my rights online is gonna stop people from being assholes tbh
Didn’t Omegle have issues with child porn.
“Genuine human connection.”
Look get the feeling of talking to people anonymously on the Internet but we aren’t going to turn to robots because a video service shut down.
Fuck platforms like Omegle. Until their are better ways of restricting behavior that harms minors on platforms like Omegle I will take this as an opportunity to say, “time to move one.”
EDIT: Didn’t think this comment would open up this many issues. It is clear that Lemmy blames parents for not knowing what their child is doing 24/7 because apparently parents should know everything their child is doing. What an ideal world. I still stand by the previous statement. Fuck Omegle and fuck anyone who thinks their isn’t an issue with child predators and Omegle and the abuse that has gone in their for years.
Let’s not forget SSSniperwolfs video of asking 16 year olds to flash on Omegle and monetizing that on YouTube.
Oh no, not the children!
Wouldn’t be an issue if parents properly monitored the kid’s Internet access.
I like to highlight to fellow parents that unrestricted access to the internet is like letting your child pop off to the big city for the night on their own. You have no idea who they’ll meet and the dangers they might face.
Monitoring, guiding, and having regular open discussions about the internet with your child is essential and required. You have to teach them the dangers they face, go on journeys with them so they know how to safely travel on their own, and you need to check the journeys they made on their own and look for risks you need to discuss with them.
The internet isn’t going anywhere. You can’t ban your child from it forever. Restricting means they’ll go behind your back. You have to face reality and have a few awkward discussions around pornography, violence, abuse material, stalkers, grooming, viruses, privacy, and more. But making it okay to discuss these things and to keep internet use as something to be discussed openly and honestly is the only way you’ll help prepare your children to surf safely and to come to you if they’re concerned about something.
There’s child porn on the internet. Let’s ban the entire internet to stop it.
At least then I won’t have to read your dumb thoughts anymore.
If you are reading this, take 10 minutes to read the post. It’s worth it.
Yes. Even for people who don’t like reading the articles, this is not one to skip.
This is kind of sad. I’ve been using the site a fair amount recently to help get through some depressive episodes and the social withdrawal/isolation that come with them. Granted, about 50% of conversations were bots, and 40% were guys just looking for girls to send them nudes, but the other 10% or so was pretty interesting conversations.
I guess this will be the impetus to get back out and socialize IRL again. Or to find a new chat-with-randos service. Or to keep spiraling deeper into depression. We’ll see.
Edit: It was also kinda nice to be treated like a woman without being treated differently for being trans.
Chat Roulette was the original random video chat platform. It’s still on the go.
I hope you find better times ahead and find some new social outlets!
I used it only once and actually had a bit of small talk with someone from the Philippines. It was very exciting that I could just talk to someone from the other end of the world just like this.
That’s exactly why they created it.
Also as a rape survivor it allowed them to meet people without any real world risks.
I checked it out a few times over the years, but was put off by the behavior of some of the people. The concept is fascinating because, as the founder mentions in his letter, there IS some safety in anonymity and expressing yourself more authentically without the physical risk is possible.
Humans mostly have “acceptable behavior” filters in public, but this system also stripped many of those away. Which led to a lot of people incorrectly assuming they could do bad stuff on this platform without consequences.
I think it’s too bad this is the way it’s got to go. Despite not really being a user, Omegle feels like part of Internet 1.5.
thats out of left field.
I’d say it’s more likely from the right…
It’s without a doubt from the right.
Dude used to put right wing libertarian talking points on the Home Screen during elections.
I went on omegle not too long ago actually and the thing I remember was that the text version of the website was inundated with bots.
You had to skip through maybe 10-15 bots before you would find that one real person, and even then it was hit or miss whether they would actually want to stay and have a conversation.
Another thing: the constant “asl” as the top of every conversation; it’s like people were trying to use it as a hook-up / dating / sexting app rather than it’s actual purpose of connecting with people from around the world. I think that mission got lost somewhere.
The mission never got lost. It’s just become popular and thus attracted the average person, and most people do not care about “connecting with people” in the way that you maybe do. Has nothing to do with the site itself really.
asl
Wow, AOL is still a thing? … Maybe I never left. Maybe I’ve just been lost in AOL’s little… channel things, or whatever they were, for the past couple of decades. Please, somecritter come find me and get me out of here 🙀
Or maybe we’re all stuck in there. Maybe the real AOL is the average bellend doing the same vapid shite every day and every night. Maybe it never ends because people never change, as a mass, as the same mess they’ve always been.
Wooooah, trippy. Anyway I think I just kinda showerthoughtsed myself into rediscovering Eternal September, or at least kinda pondering the concept aloud.
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asl goes way back to the nineties irc chatrooms. It was never a problem back then.
So many bots they spam their shit and leave for yet another bot to do the same they could have had a capcha or something to slow them down
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I used Omegle a lot when it was still text-only chat more that a decade ago. Overall I had a positive experience, It was fun talking to strangers from all over the world. I never tried their video chat though, so I can’t say if it’s actually that horrible. Back then when it was text-only, so at least I don’t have to worry about seeing some dicks. But if child predators favor the site now, even if Omegle went back to text-only, they’ll still find a way to trick kids just like in other chat platforms.
Agreed, this is why although I’m amazed by their concept, there is no way I will ever use Omegle for video chat: seeing some dicks.
I tried the text-only but still struggling on that because of non native English speakers.
I read the whole thing
Me too. I thought it was a great read.
I really liked the idea. Didn’t like all the dicks though. Shame they couldn’t solve that.
Hotdog not hotdog?
This is sad! I have so many great memories on Omegle.
I have a logitech g920 race wheel. I used to set up my phone as a Webcam and use OBS studio to make it look like I was a YouTuber and I’d go on there and stream BeamNG.
I met people from all over the world, and had some super deep conversations with people. It was like free therapy.
I don’t think people are capable of engaging in genuine discourse about human sexuality.
The people who are always crying about pedos and such every time anything related to the internet and sexuality is brought up in the news creep me out.
But both reddit and lemmy also have some fucked up shit posted in them as well.
It’s not black and white…. You could almost say it is 50 shardes of gray………
That was actually a super interesting, and somber, read.
It’s gets to, in part, the heart of free speech and government oversight. Even the opening C.S. Lewis quote is something worth applying to today’s (US) political parties. It’s difficult, for me, to consider the need to impose restrictions on the liberties of free people for the sake of a minor group of wrong doers.
Some topical issues I’m applying this perspective to are gun restrictions, Twitter, abortion, masks. I think we’re all quick to scream about what should be done to resolve the issue at the surface without taking a moment to consider the ramifications or the deeper causes driving the issue. Although, isn’t the deeper issue simply human nature? How do you solve that problem if not by imposing restrictions on the liberties of free people? Doesn’t a civil society require some level of restriction in order to foster trust and respect? Isn’t this why ancient civilizations created religion to begin with?
I mean, you have to admit that “free society” is an oxymoron.
free speech and government oversight
That’s not what I read into this at all, but something far more sinister that I see happening in the world right now. Certain power players using “government oversight” as a disingenuous excuse to attack the means for regular people around the world to speak directly to one another without the filters that favor narratives that the power players prefer, and for regular people to coordinate with one another.
The Arab Spring and BLM protests scared some people and it’s showing.
I was thinking more about whether the government has the right to protect people’s liberties at the expense of others’. I firmly believe that your rights are restricted as soon as they impose upon the rights of others. But the idea of it, even the codification of it, does not wholly prevent people from harming or obstructing others. A “free” society can not function without restrictions or punishments. Nor does this seem to be enough protection of our liberties in this world of freely expressing ourselves in real time to millions.
Post 9/11, our freedoms were restricted to ensure our freedoms. Covid required us to get vaccinated and wear masks to ensure people’s freedom of not getting sick from others. The freedom to speak in public is restricted to prevent harm or hysteria. Isn’t the government imposing taxes on citizens a limitation of their freedoms?
Places like China take these restrictions to the extreme so their society is less free than that found in the United States. Scandinavian countries are generally listed as “happier” than the United States but I wonder government regulations in those countries compare to America’s.
Personally, I’ve been of the belief that more restriction of speech (on social media) is better for society. But that’s mostly because of, I’ll just be frank about it, Trump and MAGA and Fox news. You’re right though - policy-wise - what’s the difference between the Arab Spring, BLM, Charlottesville, Jan6? They’re all a bunch of people getting together to express themselves. Just because you’re a moron, should that restrict your freedoms? Should less intelligent people or people with mental disorders be restricted from owning a firearm to protect themselves even though it may increase the risk of them harming themselves or others? Is freedom of speech different?
So, what’s the answer? How does a planet of social creatures who are permanently and instantly connected with one another live and promote a free and fair society while limiting oversight that might prevent atrocities?
I don’t think government-ing is the answer. Nor do I think our brains and emotions are evolved enough. Which just makes me nihilistic about the whole “humanity” thing. We’re doomed.
Every country defines what their citizens rights are. Some countries decide that their citizens have no rights and some, like the US, have tons of rights in theory, but not always in reality.
You have to have taxes if you’re going to have a relatively free society, because then there will be no travel, no getting out of the cycle of being poor and no one in jail (although, granted, there should be a lot less in jail but some deserve to be there). Rich people already don’t want to pay taxes, do you think they would buy roads for anyone? The infrastructure that the US now has, good and bad, is because of taxes. No one will take care of the needy and poor if you take away all of the government programs. Public schools, public libraries, public parks, all go away.
So, what’s the answer? How does a planet of social creatures who are permanently and instantly connected with one another live and promote a free and fair society while limiting oversight that might prevent atrocities?
You don’t limit oversight, you have things in place to check on the overseers. The r’s vs. the d’s was supposed to keep that all in check. The r’s fight for lower taxes and the d’s fight for taking care of the vulnerable and then it all pleasantly meets in the middle. In the US, we’ve been here before, we have to claw our way out of it. Limiting oversight of personal citizens, yes, do that. Limiting oversight of our government, fuck no. But keep the government, just fix it and watch it.
You can’t make a web2.0 internet omelette without breaking Omegle.
