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Omegle 2009-2023

omegle.com

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Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#61

Post by cortesoft »

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 childhood itself than anything to do with the technology.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#62

Post by SamPatt »

wolverine876 wrote: post #32

Despair is trendy, which makes doing it easier; it makes it normalized. Perhaps previously a 'I'm not going to give up; I'm going to keep fighting for what I care about!' message would be normalized, and because of that the Omegle founder would feel strong and supported instead of alone. (I don't know the person or much about their situation; I'm just using what I read to make a general observation.)

Sounds like he's been fighting for a long time and eventually tired.

It's a bit presumptuous to say that his actions / statement are due to despair being trendy. Everyone has their own "It's not worth it anymore" moment.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#64

Post by dclowd9901 »

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…

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.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#65

Post by tyingq »

x0x0 wrote: post #48
rvcdbn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic age verification is pretty easy, no? I’m not sure about the details but this seems like a pretty low bar for a site like this. Not that I’m advocating it be required but just that if it were me I would not make something like this without at least making the best possible attempt at age verification.

How is age verification easy?

"I’m not sure about the details"

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#66

Post by johntiger1 »

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…

Yep, each generation thinks they're special. But I think the early internet was different since it had literally just went from 0->1

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#67

Post by shadowgovt »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #52
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…

> optics Didn’t they used to specifically and notably not care about this? See ACLU defense of neo nazi march.

Sure, but then what happened.

I suspect the ACLU has refined its opinion on the nature of freedoms. Or the public that funds it has and it realized that it can't do any good if donors pull support because it keeps supporting Nazis. Maybe distinction without a difference.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#68

Post by SamPatt »

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…

You may be right. The author mentioned being in their 30s, and so am I, but I'm at the tail end and they're probably at the start.

Late 90s and early 2000s was my age of internet exploration.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#69

Post by melvinmelih »

> But it became popular almost instantly after launch, and grew organically from there, reaching millions of daily users.

The law of big numbers dictate that if there’s even a tiny chance of a catastrophic event it has close to 100% probability of happening if n is just large enough (in the case of millions of daily users, probably multiple catastrophic events per day). This kind of asymmetrical risk is very hard to defend against no matter what you do.

Re: Omegle 2009-2023

#70

Post by marcus_holmes »

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 for?" and prevent that. Again, like the responsibility is on us to not make things that could be used for evil, rather than the responsibility being on the evil bastard to not do evil things.

And ultimately, it means we'll go the same route as Omegle; it's just easier to not make stuff than fight this misallocation of blame. The world will be poorer without random quirky websites. Evil bastards will do their evil offline still, so no-one will be better off. But apparently that's what we want. It's so sad.

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