Omegle, the site that paired up strangers for 1-on-1 chats and, uh, other stuff, has closed: 'Frankly, I don't want to have a heart attack in my 30s,' founder says

09.11.2023 - 22:29 / pcgamer.com

Do you remember Omegle? It launched in 2009 as a chat service with a twist: Instead of picking a server to join or people to talk to, users were randomly paired up for one-on-one chats with anonymous strangers from around the world. That sure sounds like a terrible idea, doesn't it? And sure enough, racism and discrimination, pornography, and child abuse were all persistent problems the site faced. Yet it continued to operate for more than 14 years, until earlier this week when site founder Leif K-Brooks announced that he's pulled the plug.

«Over the years, people have used Omegle to explore foreign cultures; to get advice about their lives from impartial third parties; and to help alleviate feelings of loneliness and isolation,» K-Brooks wrote in a lengthy shutdown announcement. «I’ve even heard stories of soulmates meeting on Omegle, and getting married. Those are only some of the highlights.»

But he also acknowledged that there was plenty of the opposite, too, writing, «There can be no honest accounting of Omegle without acknowledging that some people misused it, including to commit unspeakably heinous crimes.»

Without going into details, K-Brooks said Omegle has in recent years become the subject of «attacks» from users unhappy with its policies and procedures, which is what ultimately drove the decision to close the service. 

«The only way to please these people is to stop offering the service,» he wrote. «Sometimes they say so, explicitly and avowedly; other times, it can be inferred from their act of setting standards that are not humanly achievable. Either way, the net result is the same.

»Omegle is the direct target of these attacks, but their ultimate victim is you: all of you out there who have used, or would have used, Omegle to improve your lives, and the lives of others. When they say Omegle shouldn’t exist, they are really saying that you shouldn’t be allowed to use it; that you shouldn’t be allowed to meet random new people online. That idea is anathema to the ideals I cherish—specifically, to the bedrock principle of a free society that, when restrictions are imposed to prevent crime, the burden of those restrictions must not be targeted at innocent victims or potential victims of crime."

K-Brooks didn't cite any sources of those attacks, but an organization called SOSA—Safe from Online Sex Abuse—that produces a TV series called Undercover Underage said on Twitter that the shutdown was «largely due to backlash regarding the frequency at which young users experienced online sex abuse on the platform.» It also appeared to claim some credit for making it happen.

«Outside of what you see in our docuseries, we’ve worked with young people who had been groomed and abused on Omegle—all the