Omegle shuts down after 14 years: Creepy website which allowed users to video chat random strangers closes amid claims it paired children with padeophiles

Online chat website Omegle has been shut down after repeated claims that it facilitated child abuse.

The site, which randomly matched people with strangers and became particularly popular among children during Covid lockdowns, attracted around 73 million visitors a month this year.

Omegle was touted by its creator as a “great way to meet new friends,” but it has long been under fire for failing to protect minors by linking them to pedophiles.

According to the BBC, the site has been named in more than 50 cases against pedophiles in Britain, the US and Australia, among others.

It is currently facing a landmark lawsuit brought by an American woman who was abused by a Canadian man over a three-year period.

Leif K-Brooks, who founded Omegle in 2009 at the age of 18, explained the decision to close the location as blog postwith an image of the site’s logo on a gravestone.

The “elusive” 32-year-old, who has declined interviews and has been widely criticized for failing to protect children, cited the “stress” of running the site and the lawsuits against it.

“As much as I wish the circumstances were different, the stress and costs of this battle – coupled with the existing stress and costs of running Omegle and combating its abuse – are simply too high,” said the Mr Brooks.

“Operating Omegle is no longer sustainable, financially or psychologically.

“Honestly, I don’t want to have a heart attack when I’m 30.”

In a world where lengthy online setup procedures are common, using Omegle was relatively easy.

All people had to do was go to omegle.com on their phone or computer and click “start a chat” or “video” to be matched with a stranger.

Each user chatted anonymously using the names “you” and “stranger,” although nothing stopped them from exchanging names and other personal information.

Users of the site were warned that they had to be 18 years or older, but this did not stop children under this age from visiting the site.

People were told that they were ‘solely responsible for their behavior while using Omegle’, while another warning even said: ‘Predators have been known to use Omegle, so be careful’.

Omegle is now fighting a huge lawsuit filed by an American woman ‘Alice’ who was linked to Canadian pedophile Ryan Fordyce about ten years ago at the age of 11.

During their first video chat, Fordyce convinced her to share personal messaging details, allowing him to control and coerce Alice into sending intimate images for three years.

For a documentary aired in February, the woman told the BBC that there is “a community of predators and pedophiles thriving on Omegle.”

“They use it as a way to repeatedly and consistently access children,” she said.

In the documentary – ‘Omegle: Matched with My Abuser’ – BBC cyber correspondent Joe Tidy is also seen tracking down Omegle’s founder and is denied an interview outside his Florida home.

Tiday then knocks on Mr. Brooks’ front door and shouts, “We want to know why you’re not protecting the children.”

In his new blog post, Mr. Brooks makes no mention of any such accusations leveled against him, but laments the loss of the entire website due to the actions of abusers.

“If something as simple as meeting random new people is banned, what’s next?” he said.

‘An analogy to the physical world could be closing Central Park because crime takes place there – or perhaps even more provocatively, destroying the universe because it contains evil.’

Mr Brooks also emphasized that there was “a lot of moderation” behind the scenes at Omegle, including AI and a team of human moderators.

“Omegle has done its utmost in content moderation and I am proud of what we have achieved,” he said.

“There are ‘people’ rotting behind bars right now, thanks in part to evidence that Omegle proactively gathered against them and tipped off the authorities.”