I have a fundamental question about this case: was he there physically with her? Coercion is one thing, but the word “force” implies he was somehow in control. I am in no way defending him, but it reeks terribly of the “look what you made me do” vibe and I feel somewhat uneasy about how this played out.
Omegle was a piece of the internet I never partook in. It never appealed to me to talk with random internet people. Perhaps I don’t understand why he had power over her.
Edit: thanks, I everyone. I get it from a subjective position.
Shitty parents don’t look at internet history. Even shittier parents blame others for not educating themselves on protecting their kids.
Look at internet history?! That’s the first thing kids learn to clear, right before private mode and free (trial) VPN services. The methods get swapped like candy in school.
May I gently ask if you have kids? My experience is that curious t(w)eenagers always find a way and I say this as someone who runs their own pihole, OPNsense-filtering router. The filter mobile phone networks enable is poor and by the time kids hit 13, they know every trick in the book.
And that’s before you realise screen time restrictions doesn’t actually work fully on iOS.
I’m a network administrator. It’s easy. Do you homework. Watch a YouTube video or something ffs.
It’s not easy. Do you have teenage kids?
I’ve redirected DNS ports. I’m subscribed to an up to date set of filters. I’ve got screen time set up on phones and the kids have non-admin accounts on laptops. But it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter because your kids will attend school. They will meet kids with unrestricted internet access. They will be sent shit in the 100 WhatsApp groups they are in, 40 of which have formed just this week (the old 40 groups?! Awmahgawd you’re not part of the old 40 groups are you? That was so last week!!). Snapchat, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram is FULL of shit you don’t want your kids to see. And you can refuse these for your kids - we were the last hold out amongst their class to give in to some of them, (although dammit I’m dying on the hill of Instagram resistance - they can install that shit when they’re 18; it’s like liquid self-loathing, injected straight into their veins).
Are you refusing your kids to attend that sleep over? I mean, Linda is a nice girl, but Rebecca’s parents couldn’t give a shit and she’ll be there too. Linda’s parents care, but what will Rebecca bring? Oh great, theyve been on Omegle and now I have to speak to my daughter about that hairy, sweaty naked man masturbating in front of them for 2 seconds before Linda and my daughter disconnected. I mean Rebecca thought it was hilarious, of course.
You cannot lock the world down enough that your kids are shielded. All you can do is try to raise them well, to recognise danger and to stand up for themselves.
But that means they’ll do dumb stuff and have some shocks along the way … and the same is true for the parents.
I’m all for Omegle’s right to exist. But for heaven sake there were 10 things they could have done to make it safer for kids.
I have clients who try to break free, yes.
No one can control devices that aren’t under their control, so in that case there’s nothing a parent can do and I wouldn’t place blame on them. It’s the other parents fault.
Who are you arguing is to blame now? What other parents?
Did you read the comment I was commenting on? Probably not. Probably just here to complain because you disagree with me. Blocked. 😘
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I don’t intend to victim blame or defend any abusers here; this shit is vile and should not be tolerated, period.
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From the below, it sounds like it was determined that, despite Omegle’s moderation efforts, Omegle could have done better in areas relating to age verification and matchmaking. So I’m not trying to defend or minimize Omegle’s role either, I don’t know the details of how the site worked but it sounds like this was a problem for a long time:
the judge in A.M.’s case found last July that Omegle’s design was at fault and it was not protected by Section 230: It could have worked to prevent matches between minors and adults before sexual content was even sent, the judge said.
- However, I really don’t like the choice of phrasing “forced”, and I wonder whether that’s poor paraphrasing or actually taken from the lawsuit.
Her lawsuit, filed in 2021, alleged that she met a man in his thirties on Omegle who forced her to take naked photos and videos over a three-year period. She was just 11 when it began in 2014.
Again, to be clear, not trying to say that the victim should, or even could, have done anything differently. Victim blaming is bad. But how the hell are they saying “forced” to do something by some scumbag over the internet? What kind of conditions does a kid have to be in at home to feel like they can’t turn to their parent/guardian for help in a terrifying situation like that? How is an 11-year-old in 2014 being allowed to get into that situation in the first place, between her parents and her school?
It seems like this victim was failed by every support system she should have been able to rely on. This is so messed up. This is exactly why we need things like sex education and Internet safety education.
This is a failure of parenting. WTF is an 11 year old doing on Omegle?
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