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Omegle Was Forced to Shut Down by a Lawsuit from a Sexual Abuse Survivor

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Re: Omegle Was Forced to Shut Down by a Lawsuit from a Sexual Abuse Survivor

#101

Post by ojosilva »

4rt wrote: post #98
rantallion wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all abuse is physical, and not being physical doesn't necessarily diminish the trauma the survivor has experienced. Why is 'survivor' not apt here?

I'm not from the USA but it seems like "survivor" traditionally implies having survived a situation where the normal expectation is poor odds of survivability. Nobody's a stubbed toe survivor or an upset about the bus survivor.

Sexual abuse has very poor odds of emotional recovery. Surviving an emotional ordeal is a valid use and recognized meaning: "to continue to live after being in a ... difficult situation" (Cambridge dictionary). Example: "she survived two divorces." In this case, psychological abuse can, and often does, lead to "destruction or death," which could be a crushed self-esteem, a crippling depression or even suicide.

Re: Omegle Was Forced to Shut Down by a Lawsuit from a Sexual Abuse Survivor

#102

Post by sneak »

fortyseven wrote: post #81
injeolmi_love wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And where exactly is free speech left? Every public platform I’ve used over the last 20 years that had freedom of speech was shut down. Currently if you want to discuss ideas or issues that are outside of the publicly approved consensus, the only choice left is private chats. Even there the options are continually shrinking.

Again I have to roll out the "what topics are you being denied discussion of" question. That usually clears up quite a bit.

There are a lot of true things (especially government programs in the wake of Snowden and ubiquitous smartphones/encryption) that the discussion of which is shut down due to being literally conspiracy theories (ie proposals about the true functioning of the state to enable surveillance and deny people their rights). People don’t like addressing the fact that there are parts of the state that are actively malicious and hostile to the population they are ostensibly designed to serve.

You also can’t generally criticize the police or military or social order beyond the standard “everybody knows” talking points.

Honest discussions of how society should deal with and treat people who are afflicted with pedophilia is another. There are entire swaths of viewpoints which are basically not allowed to be expressed, including most/all of the compassionate ones.

Criminal justice reform and the prison-industrial complex.

Atheism.

Suicide, and people’s rights thereto.

Drug usage, and people’s rights thereto.

The occasional need and right of a populace to employ violent revolution to secure human rights.

The illegitimacy of state violence.

Artistic nudity (I’m a portrait photographer).

Non-artistic nudity (porn is great).

Artistic non-mainstream porn (weird BDSM stuff is great).

Individual responsibility of people doing immoral jobs. People get absolutely outraged at true reporting of facts (“John Doe, whilst at $EMPLOYER, implemented unethical feature $X”).

Criticism of group identity, or discussion of the legitimacy of identity politics in general.

Jokes or memes about any of the previous, or sexual violence, or tragic deaths.

Increasingly, anti-war viewpoints. The global west is heavily invested in any enemies of Russia or China being unswervingly supported. Being anti-war is more and more a fringe position that is subject to censorship.

Criticizing the major publishing platforms, on those platforms themselves. You won’t be able to run an Amazon workers union site on AWS, for example. Nor can you discuss CCP censorship on TikTok.

Lots of things are off limits in most parts of the internet. People who think the only people complaining about the restrictions on speech online are nazis or pedos are... fairly unimaginative.

Re: Omegle Was Forced to Shut Down by a Lawsuit from a Sexual Abuse Survivor

#103

Post by HumanReadable »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #91
xtracto wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just yesterday I was thinking of publishing a heavy moderated sit or subreddit named "nuance" . A platform for healthy dialogue of subjects that normally cannot be discussed . With a minimum of say 100 words per reply, and a weekly vote of the subject of discussion for next week. I dream of being able to healthy discuss stuff like "illegal crossing/immigration of mexicans" or "US gun control/freedom" , or even more t…

> I dream of being able to healthy discuss stuff like "illegal crossing/immigration of mexicans" or "US gun control/freedom", or even more touchy subjects like "pedophilia, as a mental sickness". You call those "touchy subjects"? Do "Jewish history" and watch it get shut down in a week.

actually, 'Touchy Subjects' would be a decent name for a site like this.

Re: Omegle Was Forced to Shut Down by a Lawsuit from a Sexual Abuse Survivor

#104

Post by Spivak »

whatshisface wrote: post #6
hfjjbf wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but did they pull their dicks out or ask you to undress? Telephone just isn’t a valid metaphor here.

I'm wondering how long it's going to be before someone sues a city for public indecency committed at a street intersection. After all, public spaces connect you instantly with strangers who only have to show up.

I mean that's not a totally unrealistic situation, if there was a city that was plagued such behavior and the police/justice system as a whole weren't able to tamp it down to the point where it was commonplace when going out I bet someone would sue the city to do something about it.

Re: Omegle Was Forced to Shut Down by a Lawsuit from a Sexual Abuse Survivor

#105

Post by behringer »

rainonmoon wrote: post #85
injeolmi_love wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that’s the case, then why did these platforms exist in the past and don’t exist now? I’m not just talking about virtual platforms, but also physical public forums and meetups. I agree with what you’re saying about admins, but the “who” that is shooting the bullet seems to be a growing bipartisan antiliberal movement. It’s not just my personal experience; globally there’s been a decrease in freedom of speech metric…

You can literally develop and stand up Omegle tomorrow if you want to, dude. Nobody's going to stop you until you start enabling child sexual abuse, so go ahead.

Pretty sure the person filing lawsuits would try and stop you

Re: Omegle Was Forced to Shut Down by a Lawsuit from a Sexual Abuse Survivor

#106

Post by skynet1234 »

I think parents should take some responsibility here.

The park analogy that the creator of omegle made is interesting, we don't shutdown parks because a crime may take place there.

And why not just remove video chat completely and keep the text chat and with higher moderation and tools, it should have been possible to keep the problems at bay.

We might try to out reason the following argument but I do believe it demands reflection. Omegle was about the only popular mass media which was fully distributed, allowed for random encounters with people.

I am reminded of Aaron Swartz. And, I have a deep suspicion that Omegle's shutdown being part of the lawsuit settlement has a lot more to the story. And probably the creator also had to sign NDA or something.

Re: Omegle Was Forced to Shut Down by a Lawsuit from a Sexual Abuse Survivor

#107

Post by krapp »

injeolmi_love wrote: post #89
krapp wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to have to get into specifics, I doubt "a growing bipartisan antiliberal movement" is responsible for the categorical removal of free platforms from the internet. This seems like a framing designed to avoid necessary context or mischaracterize motives. If you mean, for instance, Kiwifarms - their ISP and Cloudflare refused to do business with them for reasons other than being "antiliberal." You can't bla…

I cannot get into specifics because I don’t want to get banned on hacker news. I will generally wave in the direction of authorities that are violating human rights.

If you're gesturing in the general direction of the Israel/Palestine discourse, I would agree with you that the eagerness with which a lot of that has been stifled in the public sphere is disturbing. But it's also still going on regardless, even on HN.

And I still wouldn't hold up Omegle as an example of the same class of problem. Freedom of speech should cover political disagreement and debate, but it shouldn't cover sexual abuse.

Re: Omegle Was Forced to Shut Down by a Lawsuit from a Sexual Abuse Survivor

#108

Post by RecycledEle »

rainonmoon wrote: post #85
injeolmi_love wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that’s the case, then why did these platforms exist in the past and don’t exist now? I’m not just talking about virtual platforms, but also physical public forums and meetups. I agree with what you’re saying about admins, but the “who” that is shooting the bullet seems to be a growing bipartisan antiliberal movement. It’s not just my personal experience; globally there’s been a decrease in freedom of speech metric…

You can literally develop and stand up Omegle tomorrow if you want to, dude. Nobody's going to stop you until you start enabling child sexual abuse, so go ahead.

Stop trolling.

Every web site I ever built with ANY political content was vandalized by my hosting providers then disabled.

Re: Omegle Was Forced to Shut Down by a Lawsuit from a Sexual Abuse Survivor

#109

Post by krapp »

RecycledEle wrote: post #108
rainonmoon wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can literally develop and stand up Omegle tomorrow if you want to, dude. Nobody's going to stop you until you start enabling child sexual abuse, so go ahead.

Stop trolling. Every web site I ever built with ANY political content was vandalized by my hosting providers then disabled.

That's odd. I see political content all over the web, all the time. And there are hosting providers whose entire business model is hosting "controversial" content.

Also, Omegle didn't host political content. Also, no one vandalized it or took it down until someone sued the site owners over a crime being committed, not for any political expression.

Re: Omegle Was Forced to Shut Down by a Lawsuit from a Sexual Abuse Survivor

#110

Post by theartfuldodger »

3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #21
dmitrygr wrote: post #5

Please punch a hole on your “once again, a lack of parenting being solved by something other than better parenting” card.

I don't know how you understand "parenting" but it's not supposed to involve 24/7 second by second monitoring of a teenager's life. It's complicated. I don't blame Omegle, but sometimes there's no one to blame, except the perpetrators. Now, thanks to AI, we could recreate Omegle and make it safer, like detect children using it, and detect abusers. Of course this may trigger an arm's race of filters. But I think we ha…

I think we can expect parents to watch their 11yo when it comes to broadcasting themselves on video

This is an absentee parent problem using the internet as a nanny.

Just because it is ubiquitous does not mean it is the correct way.

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