[lrvick]

Going after the abuser... of course.

Going after a video chat application because it is unable to provide personalized human monitoring for every conversation, is insane.

Meanwhile no doubt a dozen competitors just got a boost in traffic.

[Astraco]

Omegle had the obligation to protect their users, specially if they are minors. It lacked the tools and the moderation. I'm glad it is gone.

[heroiccocoa]

No it shouldn't have any such obligation, because it explicitly stated minors were not to enter on its front page. Do you expect car manufacturers to make driving safe for children too?

[Crosseye_Jack]

Until October 2022 the terms of service stated that users 13+ could use the site with parents permission, between the Sept 30th [1] and Oct 6th [2] the terms changed to 18+ (a couple of months after the A.M. lawsuit was filed, or at least the 2nd amended complaint was).

"In or about 2014" (the lawsuits wording) A.M. was paired with the abuser the terms stated " Do not use Omegle if you are under 13. If you are under 18, use it only with a parent/guardian's permission." [3]

I'm not saying they had an obligation legally, but personally thinking if you allow minors on a site esp, where you know people get their junk out to flash to other users, you prob should segregate those <18 yo and those >=18 yo. How you do that effectively? I dunno, but age gating (even minimal age gating) makes easier to argue that people are willfully misrepresenting themselves to your service and can't be expected to police EVERY user on the site, esp when they lie to you about their age. (Also would have helped against the claims that Omegle were serving ads for adult sites to minors too).

EDIT: However, taking from the lawsuit

> 39. In or about 2014, the Omegle Predator logged onto Omegle and was paired via text chat with A.M., an 11-year-old girl living with her family in Michigan. This was A.M.’s first time using Omegle alone. Other times, she and her friends had used it to have age-appropriate video chats at sleepovers.

> 40. On the Omegle platform, the Omegle Predator asked A.M. her age to which she responded, “Eleven.” The Omegle Predator continued the conversation and convinced A.M. that it was okay for them to keep communicating.

> 41. By the end of this 15-minute chat, A.M. found herself believing the Omegle Predator and trusting that he would help her “feel better”—something he had promised her.

> 42. The Omegle Predator asked A.M. for her contact information so they could stay in touch after the video chat ended

> 43. That same night, the Omegle Predator strategically gained A.M.’s trust and induced A.M. to send him photos of herself. First of her smile, and eventually, of her breasts, vagina, and other parts of her body. The Omegle Predator convinced A.M. that it was integral to her “healing” to trust him even if she felt uncomfortable

So I'm not 100% sure that anything bad even happened between A.M. and the predator on Omegle (Though I still skimming though the complaint) but then happened off-site afterwards. Not sure how you can police users interactions when they take conversations off-site.

EDIT 2: Also A.M. stated in the initial chat that she was 11, so wasn't allowed to use the site per Omegle's terms, but as in other cases, if sites "know" they have users below the age of 13 and are collecting personal information about those people they are running a foul of COPPA (just to name one child protection law).

EDIT 3: Would have been an interesting "Product Liability" case if it had gone to trial, plaintiffs argument seems to be "because omegle knew it had issues in the past with predators using the site, they should have and could have done more to protect others using the site from such predators, and so the product itself is faulty". Defense would prob said something along the lines of "no bad actions between A.M. and her abuser happened on the site during their initial chat, they then took their chat off-site, omegle can't be expected to police users off-site." among other defenses. Personally I believe it would be a crapshoot on an outcome because in civil cases its not "beyond a reasonable doubt" but a "preponderance of the evidence" (more likely to be true than false) and jurors don't like it when bad things happen to children.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220930045119/https://www.omegl...

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20221006193003/https://www.omegl...

[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20140401224837/http://www.omegle...

[Astraco]

Yes, they should. The moment they don't allow minors in their site they have to implement the measures to enforce it.

Omegle became a safe haven for pedophiles and sex predators, and they are responsable for enabling them and not protecting their users.

There are other chat and video-chat sites that not only enforce their rules, they protect their users and ban those who don't follow the rules.

No, don't expect that from car manufacturers, they make cars not rules. Omegle, instead, made 'the car' and the rule not allowing minors in the site to avoid their responsibilities by law. They didn't enforce that rule and endangered them.

[lrvick]

By your logic, as it reads to me, every porn site, adult novel, car, hunting rifle, vape, and can of beer, is responsible if an underage user is harmed.

They must implement technical measures to accurately detect if someone is underage?

All these things should be banned until this technology exists?

[archerx]

The only people who are at blame are the pedophile and the terrible parents of the girl.

[Astraco]

And Omegle for enabling and creating a safe haven for pedophiles.

[ErikBjare]

Omegle cannot perfectly protect their users from other users, and cannot determine who is a minor without ID verification (as we have seen in Virginia and Mississippi for porn sites).

They clearly want the entire product category illegal. Omegle might be gone, but many similar services remain.

[Astraco]

Does Discord or Zoom enforce their rules? How other sites like icanhazchat enforce that rule? Omegle didn't care about their own rules, endangering minors.

[mewpmewp2]

I think in modern times in theory they could have AI analyze the conversations to spot any such grooming behaviour.

[phanimahesh]

What kind of tools and moderation would have been effective? Genuinely curious to hear perspectives.

[Astraco]

The same ones that Discord or Zoom have.