Always depressing when an internet mainstay goes under. I'm curious about who was so dedicated to keeping Omegle of all things off the web with attacks.
These seem to be the years the websites are unable to make money any longer and if they can't make money from the users they will fade away.
We can only wait around and see what next shiny thing pokes it's head around the corner to try and fill the video chat roulette
It’s basically the dot com bubble all over again. These companies survived for years off free money and venture capitalists with seemingly endless pockets due to low interest rates. Now that rates are up the money is dry. Now that investors don't have free money they want to see a return. Since these companies never could be profitable they’re now collapsing under their own weight.
As for who was wanting to shut it down… basically any government agency dealing in child abductions, any mom group, “family” organization, incels/people mad at others for just being social. Just my guess.
I do recall trying out Chatroulette when it first came out but it was a lot of mushroom caps I wasn't interested in seeing so I didn't stick around long.
Back before that when I was dating some of that included the personal section of Craigslist. Unfortunately there was some horrible attacks of sex trade workers that used the personals down in the US and then the US government came together to "protect" people by holding the websites liable.
In the process the personal section of CL which included dating and penpals was closed. Many people met their spouses and had long term relationships and friendships as a result of CL that they wouldn't have had in real life. I think it some ways that dating section was much better than the juiced up dating sites that have followed since. They are more about driving revenue than true connections.
I'm not sure if they solved the sex trade problem, but I don't think they have won the war on drugs either. Much like the gun lobbying crowd say innocent gun owners shouldn't be affected I would think in the same way users of internet services shouldn't be either.
But life isn't so black and white and many of us are unable to get beyond this stage of adolescence...
Well I'm just glad Harry Mack managed to release his 100th episode of "Omegle Bars" this week. He decided to take a break from doing Omegle-based content at the right time, it seems.
For anyone who doesn't know, Harry Mack's a freestyle rapper. He has (had) a series where he'd ask strangers on Omegle to give him a handful of words and then create a full song out of them on the fly. And not just saying those words then immediately moving on like most freestyle rappers do; he actually creates entire verses on the topics he's given and really raps around them. Plus he'd be calling out things the people were doing as they react to him, responding to things they say, mentioning things he can see in the room, etc, as he raps.
He takes what are some fairly negative, "cry for help" words from the girls and turns them into a really beautiful, positive rap overall. He's a very positive guy in general, and I've watched him consistently since I discovered him. Binging his videos got me through a breakup, in fact.
My own experiences with Omegle have either been penises or just bland, and it's not something I've used for many years as a result. But videos like Harry Mack's show what wonderful things could come from it and I do think it's a huge shame it's gone. It feels like another part of the old internet's gone, and that we're moving even closer to the sanitised, heavily-monetised internet run by megacorporations. I hate that.
Harry Mack
Hands down the best freeflow rapper of all time. Just to watch him throw out a rap with random words and it makes sense is unbelievable.
Just amazing
Thanks for the link. I knew nothing about him and that was cool.
Wow that was a great read. Leif comes across as very perceptive on multiple fronts here.
Unfortunately I think his warning about the internet ending up like "souped up TV" is looking more likely by the day.
Right now it's quite easy to force a site or service to bend the knee to outside pressure. No matter how right or wrong that pressure is. People will go after hosting and ISPs, if that doesn't work they'll tie people up directly in the courts. You must provide real contact info and be willing to play ball if you operate on the old web.
Embracing encryption is the only thing I can think to do to avoid that. Which honestly kind of sucks, because while true anonymity would save sites like Omegle who act in good faith and police themsevles in a reasonable manner, others that don't will also be protected. I think the pros out weigh the cons with anonymity but that is a hard pill to swallow for many.
Solutions needed, how to get the great masses seamless access to the dark web.
And how to we make dark web DNS addresses not be stupid garbage ?
You'll just end with companies making the "dark web" mainstream and just turning it into shit just like they're doing with the regular web
As opposed to remaining in the festering shit pile that old web is becoming ?
Just saying making the dark web easier to use isn't a solution, as soon as it gets mass adoption you're right back to square one
No the underlying structure is going to change the nature of it. Yes it will eventually get corrupted and the next thing will address that too.
I'd rather take garbage addresses instead of the current trend of enshitification.
Well then that's going to be an irrelevant nerd clubhouse
Once upon a time the entire internet was an irrelevant nerd clubhouse. Those were good days.
Actually yes, but it also was great to get everybody in here. It's the vultures and their advertising friends that ruined the internet
So many YouTube channels based around Omegle will have to pivot now
Seriously are there still Omegle channels?
(I don't mean to be pedantic, I honestly thought it was a fad).
TheDooo, Harry Mack and Marcus Veltri were still very much making Omegle videos as recently as weeks ago. Huge loss for them that Omegle is gone.
Sad news.
I tried Omegle years ago close to when it came out and it was fun entertainment for a short while, though I didn't stick around because one of the issues was that if you ended up striking an interesting and wholesome conversation, you'd never meet this person again and this bothered me.
Reading its epitaph shows there was a lot of work done on it to maintain it and catch evil users, so I'm much more impressed now.
RIP Omegle, you were a nice experiment!
I didn’t stick around because one of the issues was that if you ended up striking an interesting and wholesome conversation, you’d never meet this person again and this bothered me.
Couldn't you have offered some permanent contact such as social network profile to remain in contact with that human?
Facebook was too new/personal and MySpace was basically already dead. There were few other forums that were "universal".
AOL was popular but I never got on it. IRC was good but complicated for people not on it. Everything else was basically forums, so if you were lucky and they had Gaia Online or IMVU then maybe you'd have a chance.
Personally, I think that whole idea is what made Omegle have great potential. The fleeting experience of brief friendships are far less common today than they used to be. How many playdates did you have with friends that only ever happened maybe 5 times total? How many people on planes or travel busses did you converse with, never to see or hear from again? This is the human experience and in a way it's still there but now it's just "ghosting" because you "can" stay in contact.
I dunno. Personally I think the guy I met on a plane at 13 who is still reaching out to me on Facebook over a decade later is kinda weird, regardless of intent at this point, and I could see Omegle having the same issue in that regard.
All this said - email was pretty safe and I was surprised it wasn't utilized more often for this purpose. It was a legitimate issue for online friends back in the day when it probably didn't need to be, lol.
Thanks for sharing!
Looks like this is the norm now, Technofeudalism is here, goodbye capitalism.
Following the censorship over the years, looks similar to what happened with legacy media (main stream media).
Quote included in post:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” — C.S. Lewis
In short, the Internet opened the door to a much larger, more diverse, and more vibrant world than I would have otherwise been able to experience; and enabled me to be an active participant in, and contributor to, that world. All of this helped me to learn, and to grow into a more well-rounded person.
In recent years, it seems like the whole world has become more ornery. Maybe that has something to do with the pandemic, or with political disagreements. Whatever the reason, people have become faster to attack, and slower to recognize each other’s shared humanity. One aspect of this has been a constant barrage of attacks on communication services, Omegle included, based on the behavior of a malicious subset of users.
Fear can be a valuable tool, guiding us away from danger. However, fear can also be a mental cage that keeps us from all of the things that make life worth living. Individuals and families must be allowed to strike the right balance for themselves, based on their own unique circumstances and needs. A world of mandatory fear is a world ruled by fear – a dark place indeed.
Unfortunately, what is right doesn’t always prevail. As much as I wish circumstances were different, the stress and expense of this fight – coupled with the existing stress and expense of operating Omegle, and fighting its misuse – are simply too much. Operating Omegle is no longer sustainable, financially nor psychologically. Frankly, I don’t want to have a heart attack in my 30s.
Can someone explain in short what problem people had about Omegle?
Was it that you can say things (and show things) there to a random person without any good possibility to trace it back to you because it's anonymous and more "temporary" then something like Lemmy for example?
Or was it just a witch hunt without any real reasonable structure?
People argue that despite its moderation, it was pretty vulnerable to exploitation and sex abuse
Ok, sounds like the standard claim for everything to me to be honest.
It's crazy to sometimes stop to think about how many nice things we could have if it wasn't for pedophiles. Not a joke either, actually give it some thought.
A lot of people also use pedophiles as a basis for their nefarious plans. "Protect the children" is a rallying cry of the alt right, despite how many child rapists exist in the cult.
For sure but there are legit cultural things too that are affected. Say you walk by a playground and a kid falls off a tree or something and hurts himself, you can't see the kids parents anywhere and consoling him would risk you being perceived as a pervert. For consoling a kid that hurt itself. Like jesus what the fuck
What really? Where do you live? Here in Germany you can get in legal trouble when you see someone in an urgent need for help and you not help.
Would failing to deliver CPR be considered a violation of this law?
I guess the correct answer to this is "it depends"...
If the situation is to stressful for you to handle than most probably not. In reality this would be think a court would need to decide on.
Ah yes, the ol' non-mandatory community hospitality.
The "alt-right" never think about the children nor have they done anything with children as an excuse. That was the rallying cry of the "Compassionate Conservatives" and the televangelists who banned video games and rap music in the 90's and also why you have to click "yes I'm 18" on many websites including lemmy. "Think of the children" is just what authoritarians use as an excuse to push their agenda whether that is ensuring the State has a monopoly on violence, or trying to ban things they don't like.
What the fuck are you talking about? They've definitely been using children as an excuse as they attack libraries. Pay attention.
That seems like normal conservative stuff to me. No need to call it the "alt-right" which in itself is a normalizing term that provides cover for the conservatives culture warriors that have existed forever.
This is the alt right, the modern Conservative Party has been folded into it. There's no cover, they're fascists or they support them.
Alt-right is a term coined by a horrible presidential candidate as she attempted to draw a false distinction between a "good conservative" and a "bad conservative." But the distinction is without a difference.
Yeah I remember using it and you had a bunch of creeps on there that sadly aren't unique to omegle, but once one site gets a reputation of any kind its hard to beat.
Omegle is a bit of a unique case due to their persistent non-action.
Most places, if people start grooming children or broadcasting child porn, they'll start banning offenders at the very lest.
Omegle, nah.
At one point, they put a warning splash screen "Careful: there are pedophiles that use this" or something like that, but they took the warning down after a while.
And eventually they did officially say that you can't use the site if you're a minor, but of course it was just enforced through the honour system.
Those are literally the only two actions they ever took to address criminal content and behaviour.
Always depressing when an internet mainstay goes under. I'm curious about who was so dedicated to keeping Omegle of all things off the web with attacks.
These seem to be the years the websites are unable to make money any longer and if they can't make money from the users they will fade away.
We can only wait around and see what next shiny thing pokes it's head around the corner to try and fill the video chat roulette
It’s basically the dot com bubble all over again. These companies survived for years off free money and venture capitalists with seemingly endless pockets due to low interest rates. Now that rates are up the money is dry. Now that investors don't have free money they want to see a return. Since these companies never could be profitable they’re now collapsing under their own weight.
As for who was wanting to shut it down… basically any government agency dealing in child abductions, any mom group, “family” organization, incels/people mad at others for just being social. Just my guess.
I do recall trying out Chatroulette when it first came out but it was a lot of mushroom caps I wasn't interested in seeing so I didn't stick around long.
Back before that when I was dating some of that included the personal section of Craigslist. Unfortunately there was some horrible attacks of sex trade workers that used the personals down in the US and then the US government came together to "protect" people by holding the websites liable.
In the process the personal section of CL which included dating and penpals was closed. Many people met their spouses and had long term relationships and friendships as a result of CL that they wouldn't have had in real life. I think it some ways that dating section was much better than the juiced up dating sites that have followed since. They are more about driving revenue than true connections.
I'm not sure if they solved the sex trade problem, but I don't think they have won the war on drugs either. Much like the gun lobbying crowd say innocent gun owners shouldn't be affected I would think in the same way users of internet services shouldn't be either.
But life isn't so black and white and many of us are unable to get beyond this stage of adolescence...
Well I'm just glad Harry Mack managed to release his 100th episode of "Omegle Bars" this week. He decided to take a break from doing Omegle-based content at the right time, it seems.
For anyone who doesn't know, Harry Mack's a freestyle rapper. He has (had) a series where he'd ask strangers on Omegle to give him a handful of words and then create a full song out of them on the fly. And not just saying those words then immediately moving on like most freestyle rappers do; he actually creates entire verses on the topics he's given and really raps around them. Plus he'd be calling out things the people were doing as they react to him, responding to things they say, mentioning things he can see in the room, etc, as he raps.
Here's one of his freestyles that's really stuck with me ever since I first saw it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehcA4zCeaPI
He takes what are some fairly negative, "cry for help" words from the girls and turns them into a really beautiful, positive rap overall. He's a very positive guy in general, and I've watched him consistently since I discovered him. Binging his videos got me through a breakup, in fact.
My own experiences with Omegle have either been penises or just bland, and it's not something I've used for many years as a result. But videos like Harry Mack's show what wonderful things could come from it and I do think it's a huge shame it's gone. It feels like another part of the old internet's gone, and that we're moving even closer to the sanitised, heavily-monetised internet run by megacorporations. I hate that.
Hands down the best freeflow rapper of all time. Just to watch him throw out a rap with random words and it makes sense is unbelievable.
Just amazing
Thanks for the link. I knew nothing about him and that was cool.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=ehcA4zCeaPI
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Wow that was a great read. Leif comes across as very perceptive on multiple fronts here.
Unfortunately I think his warning about the internet ending up like "souped up TV" is looking more likely by the day.
Right now it's quite easy to force a site or service to bend the knee to outside pressure. No matter how right or wrong that pressure is. People will go after hosting and ISPs, if that doesn't work they'll tie people up directly in the courts. You must provide real contact info and be willing to play ball if you operate on the old web.
Embracing encryption is the only thing I can think to do to avoid that. Which honestly kind of sucks, because while true anonymity would save sites like Omegle who act in good faith and police themsevles in a reasonable manner, others that don't will also be protected. I think the pros out weigh the cons with anonymity but that is a hard pill to swallow for many.
Solutions needed, how to get the great masses seamless access to the dark web.
And how to we make dark web DNS addresses not be stupid garbage ?
You'll just end with companies making the "dark web" mainstream and just turning it into shit just like they're doing with the regular web
As opposed to remaining in the festering shit pile that old web is becoming ?
Just saying making the dark web easier to use isn't a solution, as soon as it gets mass adoption you're right back to square one
No the underlying structure is going to change the nature of it. Yes it will eventually get corrupted and the next thing will address that too.
I'd rather take garbage addresses instead of the current trend of enshitification.
Well then that's going to be an irrelevant nerd clubhouse
Once upon a time the entire internet was an irrelevant nerd clubhouse. Those were good days.
Actually yes, but it also was great to get everybody in here. It's the vultures and their advertising friends that ruined the internet
So many YouTube channels based around Omegle will have to pivot now
Seriously are there still Omegle channels?
(I don't mean to be pedantic, I honestly thought it was a fad).
TheDooo, Harry Mack and Marcus Veltri were still very much making Omegle videos as recently as weeks ago. Huge loss for them that Omegle is gone.
Sad news.
I tried Omegle years ago close to when it came out and it was fun entertainment for a short while, though I didn't stick around because one of the issues was that if you ended up striking an interesting and wholesome conversation, you'd never meet this person again and this bothered me.
Reading its epitaph shows there was a lot of work done on it to maintain it and catch evil users, so I'm much more impressed now.
RIP Omegle, you were a nice experiment!
Couldn't you have offered some permanent contact such as social network profile to remain in contact with that human?
Facebook was too new/personal and MySpace was basically already dead. There were few other forums that were "universal".
AOL was popular but I never got on it. IRC was good but complicated for people not on it. Everything else was basically forums, so if you were lucky and they had Gaia Online or IMVU then maybe you'd have a chance.
Personally, I think that whole idea is what made Omegle have great potential. The fleeting experience of brief friendships are far less common today than they used to be. How many playdates did you have with friends that only ever happened maybe 5 times total? How many people on planes or travel busses did you converse with, never to see or hear from again? This is the human experience and in a way it's still there but now it's just "ghosting" because you "can" stay in contact.
I dunno. Personally I think the guy I met on a plane at 13 who is still reaching out to me on Facebook over a decade later is kinda weird, regardless of intent at this point, and I could see Omegle having the same issue in that regard.
All this said - email was pretty safe and I was surprised it wasn't utilized more often for this purpose. It was a legitimate issue for online friends back in the day when it probably didn't need to be, lol.
Thanks for sharing!
Looks like this is the norm now, Technofeudalism is here, goodbye capitalism.
Following the censorship over the years, looks similar to what happened with legacy media (main stream media).
Quote included in post:
Can someone explain in short what problem people had about Omegle?
Was it that you can say things (and show things) there to a random person without any good possibility to trace it back to you because it's anonymous and more "temporary" then something like Lemmy for example?
Or was it just a witch hunt without any real reasonable structure?
People argue that despite its moderation, it was pretty vulnerable to exploitation and sex abuse
Ok, sounds like the standard claim for everything to me to be honest.
It's crazy to sometimes stop to think about how many nice things we could have if it wasn't for pedophiles. Not a joke either, actually give it some thought.
A lot of people also use pedophiles as a basis for their nefarious plans. "Protect the children" is a rallying cry of the alt right, despite how many child rapists exist in the cult.
For sure but there are legit cultural things too that are affected. Say you walk by a playground and a kid falls off a tree or something and hurts himself, you can't see the kids parents anywhere and consoling him would risk you being perceived as a pervert. For consoling a kid that hurt itself. Like jesus what the fuck
What really? Where do you live? Here in Germany you can get in legal trouble when you see someone in an urgent need for help and you not help.
There is actual law about this. Section 323c of the German Criminal Code https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p3123
Would failing to deliver CPR be considered a violation of this law?
I guess the correct answer to this is "it depends"...
If the situation is to stressful for you to handle than most probably not. In reality this would be think a court would need to decide on.
Ah yes, the ol' non-mandatory community hospitality.
The "alt-right" never think about the children nor have they done anything with children as an excuse. That was the rallying cry of the "Compassionate Conservatives" and the televangelists who banned video games and rap music in the 90's and also why you have to click "yes I'm 18" on many websites including lemmy. "Think of the children" is just what authoritarians use as an excuse to push their agenda whether that is ensuring the State has a monopoly on violence, or trying to ban things they don't like.
What the fuck are you talking about? They've definitely been using children as an excuse as they attack libraries. Pay attention.
That seems like normal conservative stuff to me. No need to call it the "alt-right" which in itself is a normalizing term that provides cover for the conservatives culture warriors that have existed forever.
This is the alt right, the modern Conservative Party has been folded into it. There's no cover, they're fascists or they support them.
Alt-right is a term coined by a horrible presidential candidate as she attempted to draw a false distinction between a "good conservative" and a "bad conservative." But the distinction is without a difference.
Yeah I remember using it and you had a bunch of creeps on there that sadly aren't unique to omegle, but once one site gets a reputation of any kind its hard to beat.
Omegle is a bit of a unique case due to their persistent non-action. Most places, if people start grooming children or broadcasting child porn, they'll start banning offenders at the very lest. Omegle, nah.
At one point, they put a warning splash screen "Careful: there are pedophiles that use this" or something like that, but they took the warning down after a while. And eventually they did officially say that you can't use the site if you're a minor, but of course it was just enforced through the honour system.
Those are literally the only two actions they ever took to address criminal content and behaviour.
Nah it's the degree of creepiness and antisocial attitudes that can come free under the strange mix of anonymity, risk of doxxing and other things
I think those had an effect, though from my brief reading of the post he seems to blame criticism of CSAM prevention and moderation.
it's kind of "surprising" after all those years of omegle operational, no other try to copy it.
unlike any other type of internet platform, such as vine vs ig short, yt short vs tiktok, twitch stream vs yt stream, and many of others
Chatroulette was similar
There is chatroulette.
Definitely recommemd the read.
similar to craigslist personals.
and look how much better the world is now. /sarcasm