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Omegle 2009-2023

omegle.com

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Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#101

Post by mquander »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #35
echelon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This used to be exactly what the EFF and ACLU were for.

Regardless of any arguments about legitimacy, the optics of the EFF and ACLU defending Omegle against a child sex abuse victim are horrible. They need to raise funds from donors and having to explain that they fought against an individual abuse victim seems like the kind of position they would want to avoid. What I imagine they would do is fight against any overzealous legislation some politician tries to throw toget…

For people who agree with the libertarian stance, the optics aren't horrible, of course, they are good. The question is whether there are enough of those people to sustain an organization like the EFF.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#102

Post by mightybyte »

cortesoft wrote: post #61
SamPatt wrote: post #18

I don't know the whole story, but this seems very genuine. It echoes a sentiment I imagine many people my age feel, where the magic of the early internet we witnessed during our coming of age feels threatened. I feel for him, and hope he's able to move onto other projects which aren't as stressful.

I find it interesting that the "magical period" seems to be determined by your age. For me, the internet has already lost its magic by the time the mid 2000s came around, well before Omegle came out in 2009. For me, the magical period was the early 90s, when I was growing up. In 15 years, are people going to be talking about the current internet as the time when the magic was there? It seems more about the magic of c…

This is an interesting idea. For me the magical period of the internet was also the nineties to mid-naughts. But I'm not sure. It doesn't seem entirely age-relative to me. It seems like something changed. I really have no way to say for sure. In fact, I was recently talking to someone a couple decades or so younger about similar topics and he indeed seemed to have more of the age-relative view. I plan on talking to him more at some point to get a better understanding of his view. But I don't think the two ideas are mutually exclusive. I'm sure many people have a magical period of wonder where their world is expanding. To be perfectly honest, in some ways I've continued to have that even in recent years. There's a really cool corner of YouTube that has tons of incredible content that IMO is revolutionizing education. But I also feel that as a species we humans haven't figured out how to handle the powers of communication that the internet has made available to us. In an age of unprecedented access to the world's information, misinformation still abounds (no matter which side of the political aisle you happen to be on). I don't know that anyone has any really compelling ideas about how to deal with this, but I think it's a significant issue that we all collectively need to work on. The question is, will we be able to come together and do so or have we already been irrevocably torn too far apart?

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#103

Post by Blahah »

Gives me chills, that was so heartfelt and raw. Hurt on all sides, but this is a bit like losing access to a public space because someone committed crimes there.

One of the greatest things Omegle enabled is this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhzHV9QD0Is (Harry Mack freestyling for random Omegle matches, it was a series of 90+ episodes and brought me and others so much joy during COVID)

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#104

Post by shadowgovt »

aaomidi wrote: post #90
marcus_holmes wrote: post #70

This is so sad. For all the conventional reasons: the victim of the abuse deserves sympathy, and that abuse shouldn't happen. But also because we seem to be placing the blame for the abuse on the service, not the abuser. And that's sad because instead of being able to just make interesting stuff and put them online, we are being forced to consider "what's the worst possible thing that some evil bastard could use this…

[flagged]

The era of tech people thinking of themselves as Prometheus bringing fire, without a care as to how the mortals use it, is over.

... or rather, perhaps the era of being chained to a rock for a bird to peck at our livers has begun.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#105

Post by Manuel_D »

aaomidi wrote: post #90
marcus_holmes wrote: post #70

This is so sad. For all the conventional reasons: the victim of the abuse deserves sympathy, and that abuse shouldn't happen. But also because we seem to be placing the blame for the abuse on the service, not the abuser. And that's sad because instead of being able to just make interesting stuff and put them online, we are being forced to consider "what's the worst possible thing that some evil bastard could use this…

[flagged]

So car manufacturers need to stop making cars because someone might drive drunk? Kitchen knife manufacturers need to somehow prevent their products being used as weapons? This line of thinking is appropriate to a degree, but not really all that useful. Many products can be abused, and there's no feasible way to prevent that abuse.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#106

Post by shadowgovt »

blairbeckwith wrote: post #100
aaomidi wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

how far do we take this? would we have motor vehicles if we knew how many people would be killed by/with them every year?

That's a pointed question as the infrastructure to support individual cars continues to eat the cities in the US and the climate continues to change from the CO2 released into the air, actually.

Had we known what the challenges would be, would we have made them so easy to own and operate? You need a license to fly a plane solo, and it takes years to get one.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#107

Post by specialp »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #64
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of any arguments about legitimacy, the optics of the EFF and ACLU defending Omegle against a child sex abuse victim are horrible. They need to raise funds from donors and having to explain that they fought against an individual abuse victim seems like the kind of position they would want to avoid. What I imagine they would do is fight against any overzealous legislation some politician tries to throw toget…

You’re acting like the ACLU hasn’t _specifically_ stood up for child molesters in cases about sexual offense notification. It’s not about that. They just care more about cases that will give them free publicity than defending a floundering website.

They have changed their direction considerably since 2016. The cases they take on now tend not to align with an absolutist stance on freedom of speech and due process.

When Trump got elected, donations poured in to them amd they made a pretty clear turn to liberal causes. I think the days that they would defend the speech of deeply unpopular viewpoints on free speech grounds are over.

This is their plea for donations: "Abortion care, trans people’s right to live freely, people’s right to vote – our freedoms are at stake and we need you with us. Donate today and fuel our fight in courts, statehouses, and nationwide."

Now I am not saying these are bad causes but it seems their priorities have shifted. They don't seem to be defending deeply unpopular people anymore

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#109

Post by marssaxman »

aaomidi wrote: post #90
marcus_holmes wrote: post #70

This is so sad. For all the conventional reasons: the victim of the abuse deserves sympathy, and that abuse shouldn't happen. But also because we seem to be placing the blame for the abuse on the service, not the abuser. And that's sad because instead of being able to just make interesting stuff and put them online, we are being forced to consider "what's the worst possible thing that some evil bastard could use this…

[flagged]

By that standard I cannot see how any reasonable person could justify building anything at all; most of us, not being evil bastards, have imaginations which will simply fail to suggest such uses.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#110

Post by noirbot »

aaomidi wrote: post #90
marcus_holmes wrote: post #70

This is so sad. For all the conventional reasons: the victim of the abuse deserves sympathy, and that abuse shouldn't happen. But also because we seem to be placing the blame for the abuse on the service, not the abuser. And that's sad because instead of being able to just make interesting stuff and put them online, we are being forced to consider "what's the worst possible thing that some evil bastard could use this…

[flagged]

I'll be right back - I need to tell my local pub and parks authority that they didn't think through the basic consequences of their actions when they made a place people could meet random strangers. I'm sure they just haven't thought through what a moral failing offering public spaces are.

Edit to respond to OP's Edit: Your quote you're replying to includes "And prevent it". Which made us assume you were directly implying that prevention of bad consequences was your point. Yes, people should clearly think through consequences. OP wasn't implying otherwise and specifically structured their statement to include "the worst possible thing" and "prevent it".

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