Not trying to victim blame here but what kind of idiot parent lets an underage child on the internet unrestricted. Like godam what do u think goes on online.
Omegle Was Forced to Shut Down by a Lawsuit From a Sexual Abuse Survivor
Submitted 1 year ago by ooli@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.wired.com/story/omegle-shutdown-lawsuit-child-sexual-abuse/
Comments
muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world 1 year ago
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Oh, buddy, all of them
histic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
not all of them but most
macrocephalic@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah, it’s pretty damn hard to stop kids from doing things - especially since they have their own devices that are required for school.
Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 1 year ago
what kind of idiot parent lets an underage child on the internet unrestricted
All of them? The only restrictions my parents gave were about the amount of time I spent there and it’s the same story with all my friends.
TWeaK@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Back in the dial up days, my dad installed a switch in the phone socket in his room (which was wired before the phone socket in the computer room) so he could disable the internet at night. I used to sneak in while he was snoring and crawl around the bed to switch it back on.
Point being, there’s only so much you can do to prevent kids from accessing things they shouldn’t. The right way to parent is to try and direct your kids towards the right things, but also offer age-appropriate yet honest explanations for the things they do find. But it’s a difficult balance, as kids get older they deserve more privacy, and it’s difficult enough for an individual to stay ahead of the tech curve than to keep your whole family on top of it.
systemguy_64@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That argument is getting weaker every year. Let’s assume that the parents were 18 when they had her, that means the parents were born in 1985. That makes them millennials, who probably had the internet from at least 5 years old. So they aren’t some ignorant boomers who have no idea what the internet is, and they can take steps to moderate the experience.
SCB@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Even more than this, if your kid feels pressured by an adult to get naked for them, and doesn’t immediately tell you, then I believe you have utterly failed as a parent.
TwinTusks@outpost.zeuslink.net 1 year ago
what kind of idiot parent lets an underage child on the internet unrestricted.
I’m 35, and I’m pretty much online unrestricted since I’m 11/12ish. But yes, I saw some shits.
CeeBee@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m a few years older than you, and when we were kids our parents didn’t understand what the internet is and what the implications were.
Parents today don’t have the luxury of claiming ignorance. The vast majority of people understand that the internet is full of dangers for kids (and everyone really).
muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Ironicly same here. I did have to bypass restrictions put on me but i feel i earned to right to see fucked shit online by doing that.
pirat@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Though it’s not entirely without risk, I’m glad my parents, friends parents and school did when I was a kid. I find it somehow sad if today’s kids aren’t exploring the web + world on their own (with advice) some of the time, and figuring out how to act carefully outside of the walled gardens, getting to know themselves and preparing for the realities of life.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
COPPA
children under 13 can’t be online unsupervised
flumph@programming.dev 1 year ago
I think you forgot this: /s
laxmanndhotre@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m glad my dad has a no smartphone/electronics till you’re 18.
flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 1 year ago
When do the alcoholics get to sue the bars/pubs for “forcing” them to walk through the door and order a drink?
Another good thing falls to the whims of lack of personal responsibility, parenting, and Helen (won’t someone think of the children?!) Lovejoy syndrome. Now the predators will just continue to do there thing in a darker hole that is even harder to find.
FaeDrifter@midwest.social 1 year ago
If a bar is consistently serving alcohol to minors, it deserves consequences.
DiatomeceousGirth@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah there’s literally laws against it lol. The op analogy sucks.
ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 1 year ago
A bar can reliably verify the customer’s age, a website can’t do that.
The internet is not a safe space for children. It’s absolutely the parents’ responsibility to monitor their children’s internet consumption.
the_sisko@startrek.website 1 year ago
I’m confused, are you saying that it was the 11 year old girl’s personal responsibility to avoid being the victim of sexual abuse? Or are you saying that it was her parents’ responsibility to be monitoring her technology use 24/7?
Neither seems right to me…
Now the predators will just continue to do there thing in a darker hole that is even harder to find.
If it’s harder to find, then fewer children stumble upon it and get preyed upon, which is a good thing.
SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 1 year ago
Or are you saying that it was her parents’ responsibility to be monitoring her technology use 24/7?
Dunno about parent commenter, but that is exactly what I am saying. The parent is responsible for the minor child’s safety. That would include not giving her unmonitored unrestricted internet access until she reaches an age when she can safely use it. That is literally what parental controls are there for.
To make an analogy- The kid here was playing in the street and got hit by a drunk driver. The solution to that isn’t to put Ford out of business for making the truck, or to put fences on every sidewalk. The solution is throw the drunk driver in jail and remind parents not to let their kids play in the street.
flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 1 year ago
My point is that the safety of that 11 year old is no more Omegles responsibility than it is a bar’s responsibility to prevent the drunk from drinking.
If the answer to children getting into things that they shouldn’t is not allowing those things to exist then that is not a workable or desirable solution in the long term.
laxmanndhotre@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Children aren’t supposed to play 18+ rated games. But few of them did so, we’re shutting down all games👌
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
If a drunk driver kills someone then the place who served them is sued
SCB@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If a drunk driver kills someone then the place who served them is sued
Personally I think this is crazy, and totally without merit.
seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
I’ve been using Discord since 2017 and not once have I had some random stranger get naked on camera. I’m not saying that there aren’t problems with it. There probably are. I just think that saying it’s worse than Omegle is bizarre.
Kissaki@feddit.de 1 year ago
In 2022, there were 608,601 reports of child exploitation on Omegle to the nonprofit National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline. Of all the sites the center tracked, only Facebook, Google, Instagram, and WhatsApp ranked higher.
That’s a crazy high number. Especially for a live content platform which I assume can only ever have individual reports of live interactions?
NABDad@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Of all the sites the center tracked, only Facebook, Google, Instagram, and WhatsApp ranked higher.
If there are four that are worse, “only” seems out of place on that sentence.
RGB3x3@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I was surprised by that too. It also minimizes the sheer amount of users on those platforms. We’re talking billions of people if not nearly every single person in the world.
How many daily users did Omegle have?
This site says 3.35 million daily active users.
I guess having so many fewer users made Omegle a bigger problem, proportionally.
Jackcooper@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Google
???
PM_ME_FEET_PICS@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
YouTube
Sabakodgo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Parents fault, not the site.
Companion1666@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Parents don’t know DNS…
Orbituary@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I have a fundamental question about this cae: was he there physically with her? Coercion is one thing, but the word “force” implies he was somehow in control. I am in no way defending him, but it reeks terribly of the “look what you made me do” vibe and I feel somewhat uneasy about how this played out.
Omegle was a piece of the internet I never partook in. It never appealed to me to talk with random internet people. Perhaps I don’t understand why he had power over her.
die444die@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Her lawsuit, filed in 2021, alleged that she met a man in his thirties on Omegle who forced her to take naked photos and videos over a three-year period. She was just 11 when it began in 2014.
Not all methods of force are physical. This was an adult talking to an 11 year old. 11 year olds have in many cases not had enough life experience to understand that there are adults that will manipulate them in this way. It’s possible he got her to do things and then blackmailed her for more. Regardless of how he did it, he was an adult and she was an 11 year old child. Not acceptable no matter the circumstance.
johanbcn@iusearchlinux.fyi 1 year ago
Perhaps I don’t understand why he had power over her.
One can have leverage over another person by threatening to harm oneself or someone else.
There’s been many cases in omegle of people threatening “show me your boobs or I’ll kill this pet”. If the victim complies, the agressor may continue through blackmailing.
mayoi@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
What kind of parenting did you have it you are so spineless you can’t tell blackmailer to go fuck himself? It’s not your fault if he kills his own pet, who cares. He either can’t do it because he’s a pathetic coward, or he kills animals all the time and jerks off to it because he’s subhuman trash, literally not your problem.
Hillock@kbin.social 1 year ago
I can only assume but the first few pictures where probably coerced and after wards she was threatened to send more or he would release them. That definitely counts as forced. She was only 11 and this thing went on for 3 years. It's definitely not just "look what you made me do".
You can force someone to do something without being physically present.
mayoi@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Noone forced her to send first pictures, she did it herself because her parents were drooling morons who can’t teach their kid how to treat strangers asking for things like that.
zeppo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
He somehow got her to get started and then threatened her, saying that she was now complicit in making illegal porn and would get in trouble.
tsonfeir@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Shitty parents don’t look at internet history. Even shittier parents blame others for not educating themselves on protecting their kids.
seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
That’s nuts! I thought that Omegle was text only. I had no idea that they paired you with people on video. WTF thought that was a good idea?!?
rigatti@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It had video for a reeeaally long time.
Siegfried@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Idk why this is being downvoted
-1 it’s his/er right not to know
-2 “WTF thought that was a good idea?!?” Its a perfectly valid question
redcalcium@lemmy.institute 1 year ago
I frequent Omegle too when it was text only, like more than a decade ago. Had a good time and didn’t see a single dick.
InfiniWheel@lemmy.one 1 year ago
I’m honestly surprised it took this long
cryptix@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
Sad to see internet getting regulated. At this pace there would be requirements to link all accounts , everything with government identification documents. Oh its already happening slowly…
Next thing you know there is no more partial anonymous sites and no one can do it without major legal challenges.
deweydecibel@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That’s not what this is about. Omegle wasn’t following the regulations we already have, and therefore didn’t get the benefits of protection the other sites do:
In the US, social platforms are often protected by Section 230, a broad act that shields them from liability for the content their users post. But the judge in A.M.’s case found last July that Omegle’s design was at fault and it was not protected by Section 230: It could have worked to prevent matches between minors and adults before sexual content was even sent, the judge said.
echodot@feddit.uk 1 year ago
I’m really confused am I supposed to have heard of this website apparently everybody People have been using it for over a decade and I feel like I’m from a parallel universe. What the hell is this website?
kadu@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Omegle was super popular worldwide, it’s one of the “first generation” internet social platforms, back from the age when people got really impressed by the possibilities of the web.
Basically, Omegle is a platform where you chat with random people using your webcam. It’s like a Google Meet or Skype call, but the website randomly assigns you to somebody else, and you can choose to skip and move on to the next person as soon as you wish.
So you can be browsing and suddenly you’re talking to a Brazilian guitar player, and then a maths professor, and then two shy teenagers screaming, and then a dude in a Star Wars costume, and so on.
As you might imagine hearing “random people with their webcam turned on” Omegle was a place filled, and I do mean filled, with naked people. Mostly man. The design of website would start conversation with the camera turned on, meaning you’d be flashed with a dick before even being able to react.
It’s also infamous for a lot of child porn.
Kissaki@feddit.de 1 year ago
Autoplaying unrelated videos. Shit wasteful website.
dr_scientist@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Archived version: archive.is/0eou1
BlackSkinnedJew@lemmynsfw.com 1 year ago
I wondering how much time will pass for other Omegle emerge? I mean something will fill the gap if there is business you know.
JasonHears@feddit.nl 1 year ago
When I was a kid I dialed random numbers and made prank calls to strangers I didn’t know.
dasgoat@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Everyone jokes about all the wild shit that happened on Omegle, but all that shit was never ‘ok’.
subignition@fedia.io 1 year ago
I don't intend to victim blame or defend any abusers here; this shit is vile and should not be tolerated, period.
From the below, it sounds like it was determined that, despite Omegle's moderation efforts, Omegle could have done better in areas relating to age verification and matchmaking. So I'm not trying to defend or minimize Omegle's role either, I don't know the details of how the site worked but it sounds like this was a problem for a long time:
Again, to be clear, not trying to say that the victim should, or even could, have done anything differently. Victim blaming is bad. But how the hell are they saying "forced" to do something by some scumbag over the internet? What kind of conditions does a kid have to be in at home to feel like they can't turn to their parent/guardian for help in a terrifying situation like that? How is an 11-year-old in 2014 being allowed to get into that situation in the first place, between her parents and her school?
It seems like this victim was failed by every support system she should have been able to rely on. This is so messed up. This is exactly why we need things like sex education and Internet safety education.
Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
This is a failure of parenting. WTF is an 11 year old doing on Omegle?
sunbeam60@lemmy.one 1 year ago
It just isn’t that simply. I’ve got four kids. At least one of them ended up watching a naked man on Omegle once. And I say this because they were in a group of friends and dared each other on, on a school trip, and they were discovered (one of them felt pretty shocked and told a teacher) and we had a big discussion with her.
Kids do dumb shit all the time. Omegle is (was) very much known about amongst them all.
So, even with careful parenting and a locked down internet, and policies not to have phones upstairs in your room, kids do dumb shit or find a new service that isn’t in your filter, because they’ve heard about it through their friends. I know because my wife and I carefully raise four kids and the internet is a fucking onslaught to a dopamine dependent, approval seeking teenager.
I’m not saying “it’s all Omegle’s fault”. Everyone had a role to play. But let’s not pretend Omegle was blameless.
mayoi@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Trolling. You have no idea what schemes kids can invent when they’re not raised like infantile retards.
Jamie@jamie.moe 1 year ago
There was a group from Brazil doing stuff like that and got publicized when they were arrested recently. Usually they’d coerce the minor into sending one picture, then use it as blackmail against them to give them more. They might even gaslight them to convince them that they’ll get in big trouble if they tell anyone and it’ll just get worse for them.
I’ve seen full fledged adults taken hard by scammers and willingly giving them thousands of dollars against their own interests, and they heavily distrust and resist anyone trying to help them. I can only imagine accomplishing that with a child that lacks long term thinking skills is even more effective.
Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Literally a black mirror episode
capital@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Or… close the tab?
Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Or click unmatch
mayoi@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I was in special condition where it was common sense to not trust or even lie to strangers. Some groomers would ask my address and I’d give them address of local FBI office.
WallEx@feddit.de 1 year ago
So have you heard of emotional violence or exploitation? That’s how that works over the internet. You don’t need to be in the same room to be forced to do something if you’re vulnerable.
elbarto777@lemmy.world 1 year ago
OP addressed that already. OP is saying something akin to the following:
“A kid wanders at night alone and gets into a run down bar. She gets groped. The police shuts down the bar, everyone applauds. But what is a kid doing wandering around at night unsupervised?! Where are the parents?”
mayoi@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Lol no, there’s literally nothing I can do to you to force you to do anything, not even to admit that your stupid opinion is nonsense.
adrian783@lemmy.world 1 year ago
children are incredibly easy to influence. “if you don’t do it I will find where you live and harm your family” is often enough threat.
phx@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The common thing I’ve seen in more well -knowncases was the abuser striking up a relationship and pretending to be somebody younger, getting compromising details/photos from the victim, then threatening to release those to family/friends unless the victim follows their wishes (which often providing further sexual images/acts).
Not sure if that might be the case with a service like Omegle, but it was essentially what happened in the Amanda Todd case and other similar cases.
pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
what if the children play Roblox and are aware of the existence of pedos, they will be more careful right?
ZzyzxRoad@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
God, this entire comment section is nothing but
“I’m not victim blaming, but…”
“personal responsibility”
“parents should be doing blah blah blah…no, I don’t have kids.”
The best parents in the world still can’t control what their kids are doing every second of every day. Kids will always find ways around every single thing that’s meant to restrict what they can do, see, or hear. I’m sure you never did stuff you weren’t supposed to when you were a kid…right?
Rediphile@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Yeah, and we could shut down the Internet all together… or we could be realistic about prevention.
And yes, I accessed lots of ‘sensitive’ material online as a kid well before this website existed. So I find it hard to blame this specific website…websites come and go. I do however absolutely blame the creep himself since they are the one who did something wrong. Not the website.
JTskulk@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’ll do it then, I am victim-blaming. An 11 year old broke the rules and logged onto a website that she shouldn’t be on and then somehow a 30 year old guy forced her to take naked pictures. The problem wasn’t the website, it’s this child that broke the rules and doesn’t know not to do things for strangers on the internet.
richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one 1 year ago
Thank you for adding just another reason for the myriad of pre-existing ones that convinced me of never having kids.
PM_ME_FEET_PICS@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Chat Roulette, the site Omegle copied the video format from, had a built in report option that would ban nude people.