this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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Omegle has always been primarily men masturbating to (for?) random people on the Internet. It was kind of a cesspool from the beginning so you didn't miss much
Anecdote for the road: I was in my early teens when Omegle was in its heyday. Even then it was a minefield of done people that wanted to roulette chat and men masturbating to primarily children my age. I met a lot of cool people to talk to and it was my first real personal/video interaction with people over the Internet
When I was about 13 I started getting on Omegle to have men masturbate to me and tell me I was pretty. They would always ask how old I was or that I looked young. Looking back I can see that as harmful behavior, but I was old enough to have a semblance of control to never share any identifiable information nor show my face. Basically, Omegle was my homosexual "awakening" as I hadn't had those experiences up to that point
If a similar platform with maybe AI moderation came along I could get behind it. While I don't view my experience as personally damaging, I can see the avenue for grooming and exploitation and I'm glad they finally shuttered
This is such a reductive perspective. Yes, plenty of bad things have happened on Omegle. Likewise plenty of beautiful things have happened on there too.
The “it’s dangerous we’re better off without it” line of thought tends to reduce most things to bland nothingness. One could argue that Lemmy is dangerous in the same way. Children could see terrible things or meet terrible people here. But does that mean it shouldn’t exist?
What was reductive about my description? I qualified my experience with the good and bad. My only real complaint was the lack of moderation. Lemmy has its issues, sure, but it has community driven moderation whereas Omegle had essentially zero. Not to mention the accessibility and notoriety of Omegle far exceeded Lemmy
I enjoyed having Omegle exist, and I'm happy there's space for something else to take its place
Omegle definitely had moderation. It’s less to visible to the end users but certainly was in place.
Your description is reductive because it focuses heavily on the bad while mostly ignoring the good.
It’s weird that you’re both happy Omegle is gone and happy that something can take its place. Arguably the thing that takes its place will be worse because it doesn’t have the years of dedication and experience behind it.
You also mention AI moderation while totally ignoring the fact that Omegle already had that. Just because it looked like the same old website that doesn’t mean they weren’t adopting new tech.
The result was still unlabeled sexual content. They had categories specifically for that, but it was rarely adhered to from my own experience
If you're complaining my perspective is reductive how is yours any different? You could argue whatever takes Omegle's place will be worse, sure. I respect that you have a different opinion
I'll adjust my complaint to the need for better AI moderation. You're ignoring that the Omegle was shut down shortly after a lawsuit settlement surrounding child exploitation. I don't personally believe organizations or people should be able to outgrow something like that without consequences
Thank you for sharing. So pedo wankers were the main problem with the platform?
That's the only problem I see with the platform personally