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- By Annabelle Liang
- Business reporter
Omegle’s announcement of its closure included an image of its logo on a gravestone
Popular live video chat website Omegle is shutting down after 14 years following user claims of abuse.
The service, which randomly placed users in online chats with strangers, grew in popularity with children and young people during the Covid pandemic.
But the site has been mentioned in more than 50 cases against paedophiles in the last couple of years.
Founder Leif Brooks said that operating the website was “no longer sustainable, financially nor psychologically”.
“There can be no honest accounting of Omegle without acknowledging that some people misused it, including to commit unspeakably heinous crimes,” he said.
“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.
“Frankly, I don’t want to have a heart attack in my 30s.”
Omegle’s closure announcement included an image of its logo on a gravestone.
Controversy
Social media platforms are facing increased scrutiny from regulators around the world.
This week, in the UK Ofcom issued its first guidance for tech platforms to comply with the Online Safety Act and the communications regulator singled out online grooming.
Mr Brooks launched Omegle in 2009 at the age of 18. He described it as “the idea of ‘meeting new people’ distilled down to almost its platonic ideal”, and built on what he saw as “the intrinsic safety benefits of the internet, users were anonymous to each other by default”.
The website had around 73 million visitors a month, according to analysts at website watchers Semrush, mostly from India, the US, the UK, Mexico and Australia.
For some teenagers it was seen as a rite of passage to be matched with a stranger in a live video chat where anything could happen.
The account user was a minor when the incident took place and the lawsuit against Omegle was filed 10 years later in November 2021.
Omegle’s legal team argued in court that the website was not to blame for what happened, and denied that it was a haven for predators.
Imagery of young children carrying out sexual acts on camera has risen more than tenfold since the pandemic lockdowns, according to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).
In 2022, the IWF logged more than 63,000 webpages showing the material compared to 5,000 before the pandemic.
Cyber reporter Joe Tidy speaks exclusively with child abuse survivor “Alice” and her legal team, as they prepare a case that could have major consequences for social media companies. Then he tracks down Omegle’s elusive creator, Leif Brooks.
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