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It seems the real reason this lawsuit found traction while similar ones against much larger platforms is precisely because Omegle sounds like a fairly shoestrin

It seems the real reason this lawsuit found traction while similar ones against much larger platforms is precisely because Omegle sounds like a fairly shoestring operation. Platforms with an army of lawyers can surely fend lawsuits like this off without batting an eye. Apparently Omegle doesn't have an army of lawyers.

echelon 3y ago
This used to be exactly what the EFF and ACLU were for.
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  Regardless of any arguments about legitimacy, the optics of the EFF and ACLU defending Omegle against a child sex abuse victim are horrible. They need to raise funds from donors and having to explain that they fought against an individual abuse victim seems like the kind of position they would want to avoid. What I imagine they would do is fight against any overzealous legislation some politician tries to throw together in some ham-fisted response to this kind of situation. EDIT: Admittedly I know little of the history of these groups. Comments suggest I may be in error on my inferences here.
  - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
    Framing this as "what about the children" is an easy way to attack just about anything that's not strictly top-down from some large corporate vendor. On the other hand, I do wonder if "talk to strangers" is indeed a reasonable model. Our brains form largely on the basis of neurons talking and connecting to strangers. Clearly that model works there. But then again the neurons are simple (relatively) cells with much more cohesive goals and behavior, while humans are complex entities with behavior ranging from the cooperative to the ghastly predatorial. Ultimately it seems any such service can't be anonymous. Talk to strangers... fine. But you need to register first, with your name, face, age, and meet consequences for what you're doing on the service, if your intent is less than noble. Alas this takes people and money which Omegle apparently didn't have.
    - krisoft 3y ago
      > Our brains form largely on the basis of neurons talking and connecting to strangers. This is nonsense. Our neurons don’t talk to strangers. They talk with other neurons from the same individual. There is more in common between any two connected neurons than between two family members. And besides there is no reason to think that what happens between cells is a good model to base human behaviour on whatsoever.
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        you're taking a metaphor overly serious. Socialization is important (we have decades of documentation on how you can permanently damage a brain in mere weeks of solitary confinement), and we can't nor shouldn't have to base that socialization with the same relatives for your entire life. If only because we biologically have urges to reproduce and are aware enough of biology to know that family reproduction is a horrible idea.
        krisoft 3y ago
        > you're taking a metaphor overly serious. I just point it out that it is a bad one. > Socialization is important. Yes. > we have decades of documentation on how you can permanently damage a brain in mere weeks of solitary confinement Yes. > and we can't nor shouldn't have to base that socialization with the same relatives for your entire life Yes. see how easy it was to write it without asserting falsehoods about neurons, and without drawing unsupported conclusions from said falsehood? A metaphor can be faulty even if the conclusion it purports to end up with is true. And if we can do away without the obscuring metaphor (as you did in this very comment I'm responding to) then we should.
      - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
        What an odd response. I'm not even sure how to react. Your claim is we must only communicate with our families.
        krisoft 3y ago
  - pfannkuchen 3y ago
    > optics Didn’t they used to specifically and notably not care about this? See ACLU defense of neo nazi march.
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      Sure, but then what happened. I suspect the ACLU has refined its opinion on the nature of freedoms. Or the public that funds it has and it realized that it can't do any good if donors pull support because it keeps supporting Nazis. Maybe distinction without a difference.
      - ethanbond 3y ago
        > I suspect the ACLU has refined its opinion on the nature of freedoms. Of all the targets of ire for "woke culture" etc., I'm really surprised that ACLU, SPLC and similar aren't getting more heat. They're actually highly consequential in people's daily lives and can clearly be ideologically captured by a rather small group of people, given that the orgs themselves are so small. Much better targets of critique than random Twitter mobs.
        lazide 3y ago
        It’s mostly because they’re frankly irrelevant anymore (near as I can tell).
    - fastball 3y ago
      Money corrupts all.
    - Obergruppen 3y ago
      The ACLU is not the same organization that it used to be. That neo nazi march they defended was almost 50 years ago. It is doubtful they would take a similar stance today.
      - bitcurious 3y ago
        The ACLU of Virginia did defend the rights of white supremacists to organize in Charlottesville in 2017. I believe the resulting violence triggered some aclu soul searching and I’m not sure where the organization landed on defending the free speech of nazis and the like. Speaking for myself, I hope they keep to their principles.
  - COGlory 3y ago
    no, that's what they are for. The entire point is that they don't care about optics. I let my membership go when it came obvious they were starting to care.
  - ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
    Didn't the ALCU defend Nazis in the past?
    - echelon 3y ago
      And satanists. And homophobic churches. They used to know no point on the political compass and would defend all liberties.
      - lazide 3y ago
        Except anything second amendment (and a few others).
    - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
      The nazis, or free speech and freedom of assmbly?
      - bobsmooth 3y ago
        A Nazi's right to free speech and assembly, yes.
        sfn42 3y ago
        Nazis are people, and being a nazi is not a crime. Until they commit some sort of crime they should be afforded all the same basic human rights and freedoms as everyone else. That's just basic common sense.
    - zo1 3y ago
      Everyone here keeps using that word, and I'm sitting here confused. Can we sit down and define it, or are we to forever just throw it around as a convenient "bad people"?
      - mananaysiempre 3y ago
        In the case I expect the OP meant[1], it was the National Socialist Party of America, an explicitly neo-Nazi organization. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am...
  - dclowd9901 3y ago
    You’re acting like the ACLU hasn’t _specifically_ stood up for child molesters in cases about sexual offense notification. It’s not about that. They just care more about cases that will give them free publicity than defending a floundering website.
    - specialp 3y ago
      They have changed their direction considerably since 2016. The cases they take on now tend not to align with an absolutist stance on freedom of speech and due process. When Trump got elected, donations poured in to them amd they made a pretty clear turn to liberal causes. I think the days that they would defend the speech of deeply unpopular viewpoints on free speech grounds are over. This is their plea for donations: "Abortion care, trans people’s right to live freely, people’s right to vote – our freedoms are at stake and we need you with us. Donate today and fuel our fight in courts, statehouses, and nationwide." Now I am not saying these are bad causes but it seems their priorities have shifted. They don't seem to be defending deeply unpopular people anymore
      - lazide 3y ago
        And frankly, they always had a very selective list of things they bothered to get involved in. There are a ton of civil liberties they always avoided doing anything about. But they’re mostly irrelevant anymore - the causes they’ve started going after have a thousand other non-profits doing as much for, or better now.
        tomnipotent 3y ago
        > But they’re mostly irrelevant anymore The ACLU war chest has been over $400M the last few years, with many thousands of people in pretty much every state working with the organization in some capacity. There's absolutely no evidence to support your claims that either the ACLU is irrelevant, nor that it has somehow shifted its momentum considerably since 2016 in what class of cases it handles (especially given the age of the organization and number of shifts vs. overall societal/cultural changes). On the contrary, I can find many recent examples of legal actions spread headed by the ACLU across dozens of issues all over the country. If you can't find any it's because you're not looking, though you can start with their Annual Reports.
  - mquander 3y ago
    For people who agree with the libertarian stance, the optics aren't horrible, of course, they are good. The question is whether there are enough of those people to sustain an organization like the EFF.
    - newZWhoDis 3y ago
      I donate a large sum yearly to the EFF and so should all of you. Great org overall.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    The ACLU speaks up for the rights of murderers and rapists that we don't like, because we don't want the system to be able to abrogate the rights of politically inconvenient people that the powers that be don't like. Like Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning. The ACLU and the EFF aren't about optics, but the underlying rule of law. We are better than a mob with pitchforks, even when we really don't like the perpetrator.
    - userinanother 3y ago
      That’s the aclu of pre trump America. The new aclu is no longer willing to fight for that
  - newZWhoDis 3y ago
    fuck the optics. Really, I’d like to flip the script here and dare anyone against EFF protecting Omegle to post their real life resume/linkedin/etc. I’ll do my part to make sure you’re unhirable, because the “optics” of destroying something as simple and innocent as this are terrible, and what’s actually happening is pseudo-anonymous pressure.
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  The article mentions supporting the EFF if you are opposed to this kind of thing. It's possible they offered to help but the owner was sick of it all. That's the impression I got from reading the piece.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> It seems the real reason this lawsuit found traction while similar ones against much larger platforms is precisely because Omegle sounds like a fairly shoestring operation. Platforms with an army of lawyers can surely fend lawsuits like this off without batting an eye. Platforms with an army of lawyers would never greenlight Omegle's basic behavior, to start with.
- wavemode 3y ago
  What "basic behavior" is that? Anonymously video chatting strangers on the internet? Can't you already do that in many Discord servers? Or on dozens of other apps and websites (e.g. Chatroulette)? There clearly isn't anything fundamentally illegal about the practice, or these would all be shut down.
  - mikeyouse 3y ago
    You'll notice that all of those sites have registrations where you have to create an account and affirm that you're over the age of 13 rather than just putting "Don't use this if you're under 13" in tiny print at the bottom of a page. Even Chatroulette has a big popup where you have to affirm you're over 18 and that you agree to their terms and conditions before using the site..
    - notimetorelax 3y ago
      What does this accomplish?
      - mikeyouse 3y ago
        A minimal level of protection against lawsuits like the one that just killed Omegle.
        vintermann 3y ago
        Yes, obviously, but what does it prevent in terms of the outcome we care about, i.e child abuse? We shouldn't just take zealous well-paid lawyers as a fact of nature. If those "defense against lawsuits"-actions actually don't make a difference in terms of reducing child abuse, then we should not let them make a difference in the legal system either.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
3np 3y ago
OP doesn't mention anything about a lawsuit - got more information on that? EDIT: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64618791 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64618791
- PessimalDecimal 3y ago
  https://www.npr.org/2023/11/09/1211807851/omegle-shut-down-leif-k-brooks https://www.npr.org/2023/11/09/1211807851/omegle-shut-down-l... "The young woman, identified only as A.M., sought $22 million in damages in her lawsuit. Omegle was shut down days after the two sides agreed to settle the lawsuit."
- unethical_ban 3y ago
  I find it hard to be polite to people who try to blame the world around them for their poor luck and poor parenting.
  - 4star3star 3y ago
    What happened to the plaintiff was really messed up, but I don't see how it's the site's problem. Suppose you answer a newspaper personal ad, meet up with the person and get all your limbs chopped off. Yeah, that fucking sucks, but we're not about to shut down the newspaper.
    - IshKebab 3y ago
      Maybe... But if this is a real problem with Omegle (the article mentions that it is a common grooming platform) then it's not like there's nothing they could do. Did it even have age verification? On balance I still think Omegle should win the case, but I don't think it's entirely without merit.
      - Seattle3503 3y ago
        Age verification would probably require some form of ID, killing the site.

echelon 3y ago

This used to be exactly what the EFF and ACLU were for.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago
Regardless of any arguments about legitimacy, the optics of the EFF and ACLU defending Omegle against a child sex abuse victim are horrible. They need to raise funds from donors and having to explain that they fought against an individual abuse victim seems like the kind of position they would want to avoid. What I imagine they would do is fight against any overzealous legislation some politician tries to throw together in some ham-fisted response to this kind of situation. EDIT: Admittedly I know little of the history of these groups. Comments suggest I may be in error on my inferences here.
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
  Framing this as "what about the children" is an easy way to attack just about anything that's not strictly top-down from some large corporate vendor. On the other hand, I do wonder if "talk to strangers" is indeed a reasonable model. Our brains form largely on the basis of neurons talking and connecting to strangers. Clearly that model works there. But then again the neurons are simple (relatively) cells with much more cohesive goals and behavior, while humans are complex entities with behavior ranging from the cooperative to the ghastly predatorial. Ultimately it seems any such service can't be anonymous. Talk to strangers... fine. But you need to register first, with your name, face, age, and meet consequences for what you're doing on the service, if your intent is less than noble. Alas this takes people and money which Omegle apparently didn't have.
  - krisoft 3y ago
    > Our brains form largely on the basis of neurons talking and connecting to strangers. This is nonsense. Our neurons don’t talk to strangers. They talk with other neurons from the same individual. There is more in common between any two connected neurons than between two family members. And besides there is no reason to think that what happens between cells is a good model to base human behaviour on whatsoever.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      you're taking a metaphor overly serious. Socialization is important (we have decades of documentation on how you can permanently damage a brain in mere weeks of solitary confinement), and we can't nor shouldn't have to base that socialization with the same relatives for your entire life. If only because we biologically have urges to reproduce and are aware enough of biology to know that family reproduction is a horrible idea.
      - krisoft 3y ago
        > you're taking a metaphor overly serious. I just point it out that it is a bad one. > Socialization is important. Yes. > we have decades of documentation on how you can permanently damage a brain in mere weeks of solitary confinement Yes. > and we can't nor shouldn't have to base that socialization with the same relatives for your entire life Yes. see how easy it was to write it without asserting falsehoods about neurons, and without drawing unsupported conclusions from said falsehood? A metaphor can be faulty even if the conclusion it purports to end up with is true. And if we can do away without the obscuring metaphor (as you did in this very comment I'm responding to) then we should.
    - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
      What an odd response. I'm not even sure how to react. Your claim is we must only communicate with our families.
      - krisoft 3y ago
- pfannkuchen 3y ago
  > optics Didn’t they used to specifically and notably not care about this? See ACLU defense of neo nazi march.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    Sure, but then what happened. I suspect the ACLU has refined its opinion on the nature of freedoms. Or the public that funds it has and it realized that it can't do any good if donors pull support because it keeps supporting Nazis. Maybe distinction without a difference.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      > I suspect the ACLU has refined its opinion on the nature of freedoms. Of all the targets of ire for "woke culture" etc., I'm really surprised that ACLU, SPLC and similar aren't getting more heat. They're actually highly consequential in people's daily lives and can clearly be ideologically captured by a rather small group of people, given that the orgs themselves are so small. Much better targets of critique than random Twitter mobs.
      - lazide 3y ago
        It’s mostly because they’re frankly irrelevant anymore (near as I can tell).
  - fastball 3y ago
    Money corrupts all.
  - Obergruppen 3y ago
    The ACLU is not the same organization that it used to be. That neo nazi march they defended was almost 50 years ago. It is doubtful they would take a similar stance today.
    - bitcurious 3y ago
      The ACLU of Virginia did defend the rights of white supremacists to organize in Charlottesville in 2017. I believe the resulting violence triggered some aclu soul searching and I’m not sure where the organization landed on defending the free speech of nazis and the like. Speaking for myself, I hope they keep to their principles.
- COGlory 3y ago
  no, that's what they are for. The entire point is that they don't care about optics. I let my membership go when it came obvious they were starting to care.
- ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
  Didn't the ALCU defend Nazis in the past?
  - echelon 3y ago
    And satanists. And homophobic churches. They used to know no point on the political compass and would defend all liberties.
    - lazide 3y ago
      Except anything second amendment (and a few others).
  - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    The nazis, or free speech and freedom of assmbly?
    - bobsmooth 3y ago
      A Nazi's right to free speech and assembly, yes.
      - sfn42 3y ago
        Nazis are people, and being a nazi is not a crime. Until they commit some sort of crime they should be afforded all the same basic human rights and freedoms as everyone else. That's just basic common sense.
  - zo1 3y ago
    Everyone here keeps using that word, and I'm sitting here confused. Can we sit down and define it, or are we to forever just throw it around as a convenient "bad people"?
    - mananaysiempre 3y ago
      In the case I expect the OP meant[1], it was the National Socialist Party of America, an explicitly neo-Nazi organization. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am...
- dclowd9901 3y ago
  You’re acting like the ACLU hasn’t _specifically_ stood up for child molesters in cases about sexual offense notification. It’s not about that. They just care more about cases that will give them free publicity than defending a floundering website.
  - specialp 3y ago
    They have changed their direction considerably since 2016. The cases they take on now tend not to align with an absolutist stance on freedom of speech and due process. When Trump got elected, donations poured in to them amd they made a pretty clear turn to liberal causes. I think the days that they would defend the speech of deeply unpopular viewpoints on free speech grounds are over. This is their plea for donations: "Abortion care, trans people’s right to live freely, people’s right to vote – our freedoms are at stake and we need you with us. Donate today and fuel our fight in courts, statehouses, and nationwide." Now I am not saying these are bad causes but it seems their priorities have shifted. They don't seem to be defending deeply unpopular people anymore
    - lazide 3y ago
      And frankly, they always had a very selective list of things they bothered to get involved in. There are a ton of civil liberties they always avoided doing anything about. But they’re mostly irrelevant anymore - the causes they’ve started going after have a thousand other non-profits doing as much for, or better now.
      - tomnipotent 3y ago
        > But they’re mostly irrelevant anymore The ACLU war chest has been over $400M the last few years, with many thousands of people in pretty much every state working with the organization in some capacity. There's absolutely no evidence to support your claims that either the ACLU is irrelevant, nor that it has somehow shifted its momentum considerably since 2016 in what class of cases it handles (especially given the age of the organization and number of shifts vs. overall societal/cultural changes). On the contrary, I can find many recent examples of legal actions spread headed by the ACLU across dozens of issues all over the country. If you can't find any it's because you're not looking, though you can start with their Annual Reports.
- mquander 3y ago
  For people who agree with the libertarian stance, the optics aren't horrible, of course, they are good. The question is whether there are enough of those people to sustain an organization like the EFF.
  - newZWhoDis 3y ago
    I donate a large sum yearly to the EFF and so should all of you. Great org overall.
- fragmede 3y ago
  The ACLU speaks up for the rights of murderers and rapists that we don't like, because we don't want the system to be able to abrogate the rights of politically inconvenient people that the powers that be don't like. Like Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning. The ACLU and the EFF aren't about optics, but the underlying rule of law. We are better than a mob with pitchforks, even when we really don't like the perpetrator.
  - userinanother 3y ago
    That’s the aclu of pre trump America. The new aclu is no longer willing to fight for that
- newZWhoDis 3y ago
  fuck the optics. Really, I’d like to flip the script here and dare anyone against EFF protecting Omegle to post their real life resume/linkedin/etc. I’ll do my part to make sure you’re unhirable, because the “optics” of destroying something as simple and innocent as this are terrible, and what’s actually happening is pseudo-anonymous pressure.
boomboomsubban 3y ago
The article mentions supporting the EFF if you are opposed to this kind of thing. It's possible they offered to help but the owner was sick of it all. That's the impression I got from reading the piece.

dragonwriter 3y ago

> It seems the real reason this lawsuit found traction while similar ones against much larger platforms is precisely because Omegle sounds like a fairly shoestring operation. Platforms with an army of lawyers can surely fend lawsuits like this off without batting an eye. Platforms with an army of lawyers would never greenlight Omegle's basic behavior, to start with.

wavemode 3y ago
What "basic behavior" is that? Anonymously video chatting strangers on the internet? Can't you already do that in many Discord servers? Or on dozens of other apps and websites (e.g. Chatroulette)? There clearly isn't anything fundamentally illegal about the practice, or these would all be shut down.
- mikeyouse 3y ago
  You'll notice that all of those sites have registrations where you have to create an account and affirm that you're over the age of 13 rather than just putting "Don't use this if you're under 13" in tiny print at the bottom of a page. Even Chatroulette has a big popup where you have to affirm you're over 18 and that you agree to their terms and conditions before using the site..
  - notimetorelax 3y ago
    What does this accomplish?
    - mikeyouse 3y ago
      A minimal level of protection against lawsuits like the one that just killed Omegle.
      - vintermann 3y ago
        Yes, obviously, but what does it prevent in terms of the outcome we care about, i.e child abuse? We shouldn't just take zealous well-paid lawyers as a fact of nature. If those "defense against lawsuits"-actions actually don't make a difference in terms of reducing child abuse, then we should not let them make a difference in the legal system either.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

3np 3y ago

OP doesn't mention anything about a lawsuit - got more information on that? EDIT: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64618791 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64618791

PessimalDecimal 3y ago
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/09/1211807851/omegle-shut-down-leif-k-brooks https://www.npr.org/2023/11/09/1211807851/omegle-shut-down-l... "The young woman, identified only as A.M., sought $22 million in damages in her lawsuit. Omegle was shut down days after the two sides agreed to settle the lawsuit."
unethical_ban 3y ago
I find it hard to be polite to people who try to blame the world around them for their poor luck and poor parenting.
- 4star3star 3y ago
  What happened to the plaintiff was really messed up, but I don't see how it's the site's problem. Suppose you answer a newspaper personal ad, meet up with the person and get all your limbs chopped off. Yeah, that fucking sucks, but we're not about to shut down the newspaper.
  - IshKebab 3y ago
    Maybe... But if this is a real problem with Omegle (the article mentions that it is a common grooming platform) then it's not like there's nothing they could do. Did it even have age verification? On balance I still think Omegle should win the case, but I don't think it's entirely without merit.
    - Seattle3503 3y ago
      Age verification would probably require some form of ID, killing the site.