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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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
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.