Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 124 posts

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

#61

Post by ipaddr »

alephnerd wrote: post #40
mattigames wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But at least you agree that is because big companies have enough money to buy enough moderation correct? So in the best case scenario is jut another part of society that small companies are not allowed to participate if they are not rich enough.

If I post CSAM on HN I am 100% going to be reported and sent to jail. HN has only 2-3 mods, yet I don't see a plethora of old men's schlongs on here. Yet Omegle made more money and had more users than HN ever would, but consistently failed at moderation. > small companies are not allowed to participate if they are not rich enough It's been open knowledge to anyone who's been in middle and high school since 2010 (like…

Those are two different things. Men's schlongs are not csam and you can run into enough of those things on other sites like reddit or a dating site. The reason why you don't see it here is no one posts images because they are not shown. Links are checked. Plenty try to spam and are caught by mods or the automated system.

The communities are very different and attract different crowds. The most dangerous sites are sites that connect groups who wouldn't connect in real life.

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

#62

Post by krapp »

injeolmi_love wrote: post #57
Gigachad wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN treats it like the last bastion of intellectual free speech.

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.

Freedom of speech implies the freedom to choose what speech one associates with and allows. It doesn't mean a platform is forced to allow all possible speech without moderation - that isn't freedom, it's coercion. And it wouldn't even be legal on whatever "public platforms" you're talking about.

If you're looking for absolute, unfettered fuck-the-law freedom you're not going to find it on the open web. No administrator is going to be willing to take the bullet for you.

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

#63

Post by whoknowsidont »

idiotsecant wrote: post #58
whoknowsidont wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry these statements are simply not congruent. A private website that had quite a ubiquitous reputation (factual or not, consistent or not) for sexual web-cam encounters is not "most places." And you're being disingenuous by pretending it counts as such. Going to Omegle is voluntary. Watching people's web cams is voluntary. Interacting with strangers from your own personal device on a site is voluntary. There i…

This is a wild argument. Going to a coffee shop is voluntary too. You good with it if someone slaps their junk down on your table? There are standards of behaviour that apply to people regardless of context. Non-consensual sexual behaviour is one of those pretty standard basic ones.

You are responding to a stance no one has. Certainly not in this comment thread.

You left out the part where I provided examples of private spaces that implicitly act as public spaces and set expectations either directly or through social norms.

You have a very reasonable expectation of not having someone slap their junk on the table at a coffee shop. That is a physical, public space that was designed and advertised as serving coffee and literally nothing else. It is not social norms or customs to have such an act thrust upon you, and most people would reasonably find it offensive for many different reasons including health hazards.

If you went to a strip club, order a steak, are you going to complain when something similar happens? I hope not, because that would not be a reasonable expectation to have.

Omegle set the expectation upfront that largely, anything goes when you interact with strangers. That was always the case. That was the expectation. That was the point of the site.

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

#64

Post by klyrs »

whoknowsidont wrote: post #48
buzzdenver wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exposing yourself without consent is a crime in most places. Omegle was full of that. Watching porn is obviously voluntary.

I'm sorry these statements are simply not congruent. A private website that had quite a ubiquitous reputation (factual or not, consistent or not) for sexual web-cam encounters is not "most places." And you're being disingenuous by pretending it counts as such. Going to Omegle is voluntary. Watching people's web cams is voluntary. Interacting with strangers from your own personal device on a site is voluntary. There i…

> I cannot believe I have to "fuzzy peaches" this topic

Sorry for the tangent, but I have never seen this idiom. Can you elaborate on what you mean, and maybe say where you're from if this is a regional thing?

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

#65

Post by injeolmi_love »

krapp wrote: post #62
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.

Freedom of speech implies the freedom to choose what speech one associates with and allows. It doesn't mean a platform is forced to allow all possible speech without moderation - that isn't freedom, it's coercion. And it wouldn't even be legal on whatever "public platforms" you're talking about. If you're looking for absolute, unfettered fuck-the-law freedom you're not going to find it on the open web. No administrat…

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 metrics with the US experiencing less of a decline than the average but still a significant one.

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

#66

Post by ipaddr »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #60
alephnerd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's part of the business model of a VC fund -- Y Combinator It's part of YC but I can confidently say only around 4-5 people are working on it including moderation. I can also say confidently that more resources are spent by YC on Bookface and their own internal BI tools than HN.

According to this comment, it had 30 moderators in 2010 when it was a lot smaller: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1837288 It's source page gives a 404 "not found" error. The current official mod in charge pretty consistently says "no moderators did x." This handle of mine only dates to 2017, but I originally joined in 2009, so I have no idea how long you have been hanging here, but I would be really shocked if…

Back in 2009 many of those mods were posting stories / pinning stories. The flagging software wasn't as advanced. There are people with mod power not getting paid because of trust/history.. if they count in your 30 number perhaps. I'm on my 'X' number account as well

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

#67

Post by 4death4 »

buzzdenver wrote: post #56
whoknowsidont wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry these statements are simply not congruent. A private website that had quite a ubiquitous reputation (factual or not, consistent or not) for sexual web-cam encounters is not "most places." And you're being disingenuous by pretending it counts as such. Going to Omegle is voluntary. Watching people's web cams is voluntary. Interacting with strangers from your own personal device on a site is voluntary. There i…

IANAL, but having a certain reputation is not enough. If you run a site where the mean time before penis is 30 seconds, you probably have to be upfront about that and promote it as a sex chat place, not "Talk to strangers! The Internet is full of cool people; Omegle lets you meet them. When you use Omegle, we pick someone else at random so you can have a one-on-one chat." (cut&pasted from Omegle).

But it wasn’t a “sex chat place.” It was a place to talk to random people on the internet. It’s common sense that encounters with dangerous people are possible when engaging with random internet strangers. It bothers me that we live in a world that is forced to cater to the lowest possible denominator. In this case we’re talking about a single instance in 14 years of service. If we live in a world that forces every service to provably cause no harm to every single human being on the planet, then we’re going to end up with the most meaningless drivel conceivable. And for the most part, we’re already well on our way towards realizing this dystopian cultural nightmare.

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

#68

Post by whoknowsidont »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #54
whoknowsidont wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry these statements are simply not congruent. A private website that had quite a ubiquitous reputation (factual or not, consistent or not) for sexual web-cam encounters is not "most places." And you're being disingenuous by pretending it counts as such. Going to Omegle is voluntary. Watching people's web cams is voluntary. Interacting with strangers from your own personal device on a site is voluntary. There i…

Going to anywhere is voluntary and we still have public indecency laws. Doing it on the internet doesn't have an essential difference. Besides, the expectation is that members will follow the rules and the Omegle Community Guidelines clearly state > Nudity, pornography and sexually explicit conduct and content are prohibited This is opposed to a strip club where there is an expectation of nudity. It's like going to a…

>Doing it on the internet doesn't have an essential difference.

It's more nuanced than that. Omegle was designed with the explicit purpose of not having any standards around the interaction between strangers.

That was THE point.

When you're done with the interaction for any reason, you click next or you exit the website.

It's a private website, it's not a physical space you're trapped in, and its primary purpose was to have many varied interactions with people, distasteful or not.

Any expectation around a pristine interaction is your fault, not the site operators'. The opposite is true when you, as another commenter alluded to, going to a coffee shop.

Applying puritanical customs is completely contrary to what the internet was built for and how it should function. This is one single corner of the internet, not a public space advertised as a standard, pristine social environment.

The former should absolutely be allowed to exist.

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

#69

Post by klyrs »

alephnerd wrote: post #51
dragonwriter wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HN has only 2-3 mods, yet I don't see a plethora of old men's schlongs on here. HN doesn't even allow text formatting changes beyond monospace and italics, much less posting pictures or video . Even without moderation, you'd only be at risk of ASCII art schlongs.

HN allows links, yet I haven't seen any X-rated or X-rating adjacent links on here. It's a nontrivial moderation problem.

Do you browse "new," do you have showdead on?

Hah, rewind. There's literally a porn site on the front page right now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38213707

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

#70

Post by whoknowsidont »

klyrs wrote: post #64
whoknowsidont wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry these statements are simply not congruent. A private website that had quite a ubiquitous reputation (factual or not, consistent or not) for sexual web-cam encounters is not "most places." And you're being disingenuous by pretending it counts as such. Going to Omegle is voluntary. Watching people's web cams is voluntary. Interacting with strangers from your own personal device on a site is voluntary. There i…

> I cannot believe I have to "fuzzy peaches" this topic Sorry for the tangent, but I have never seen this idiom. Can you elaborate on what you mean, and maybe say where you're from if this is a regional thing?

The "fuzzy peaches" or "freeze peaches" idiom translates to "free speech" and became a fairly popular term and discussion point over the last decade in U.S. politics. Especially during the Clinton vs Trump campaigns.

When someone says "fuzzy peaches" or "freeze peaches" it's meant to sarcastically refer to the idea or right of "free speech" being used as a shield against criticism levied at an individual, or that individual/group attempting to absolve themselves of societal effects or consequences of said speech.

It is largely a term used by left-ish folks (of which I am) as a way to say "freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences" and/or "if the only thing you can say about what you're saying is that you can say it, maybe you shouldn't say it at all"

The idea being that speech in public spaces needs to be constructive and purposeful.

Topically, if you use Google to search for these terms, you get absolutely nothing :^). Though reddit searches do yield plenty of results (among other sites).

Post reply on HN