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a checkered history

After 14 Controversial Years, Omegle Is Dead. Here's How The Internet Is Reacting

Darcy Jimenez
Darcy Jimenez
After 14 Controversial Years, Omegle Is Dead. Here's How The Internet Is Reacting
While some lament the loss of an iconic chat site, others bid good riddance to a service notoriously exploited by racists, creeps and pedophiles.
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On November 8, it was announced that Omegle, the video chat site that paired you with strangers across the globe, had shut down. If you visit the website now, you're met with a picture of a gravestone reading "Omegle: 2009 - 2023," and a surprisingly lengthy goodbye note from its creator, Leif K-Brooks.

People 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 writes. "I've even heard stories of soulmates meeting on Omegle, and getting married."

"Unfortunately, there are also lowlights," he adds, acknowledging that the site also became a platform for "unspeakably heinous crimes." These include, among many other controversies, a girl being sexually exploited by a man she met on Omegle and teenagers being subjected to racist abuse. In the face of hefty criticism about the moderation of Omegle, and the expenses of running it, K-Brooks says, "operating Omegle is no longer sustainable, financially nor psychologically."

While for many, including myself, Omegle is chiefly remembered as the place they saw far too many unsolicited genitals at far too young an age, others are sincerely mourning the loss of a website that connected them with people they would never have met otherwise. K-Brooks ends his goodbye to users by saying, "I worry that, unless the tide turns soon, the internet I fell in love with may cease to exist" — and with many others fearing the same, it's somewhat understandable that reactions to the death of even a website as controversial as Omegle are mixed.




[Image credit: Omegle]

Comments

  1. Tim Somers 5 months ago

    Awww, how cute. She thinks A/S/L started on Omegle. ISCABBS users from 1991 would like a word.

  2. Gail Pink 5 months ago

    Never even heard of Omegle until today.

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