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In that article she was 11 when using Omegle. She was using internet without appropriate supervision. That's almost like allowing a kid to drive a car, leading

In that article she was 11 when using Omegle. She was using internet without appropriate supervision. That's almost like allowing a kid to drive a car, leading to an accident, and then trying to ban cars because they are dangerous to kids. The internet is a great place, but it's an adult place. You can find absolutely horrible (adult) things on wikipedia that a kid should not be learning about at the age of 11. And I don't think we want to close wikipedia. The responsibility of internet platforms is needed, but it's not an excuse for parental neglect.

loxdalen 3y ago
Realistically, kids are on the Internet. I don't know when you were born, but my relationship to the Internet started probably around the time I was 7 or 8. My school had computers with Internet, there were two computers at home. My parents could have limited my Internet use but they couldn't have stopped me. There is not a guard standing by every computer stopping me from being Online if I am under 18 years of age. I still don't think Omegle is at fault, but we have to assume kids are on the Internet.
- DeusExMachina 3y ago
  They sure are, but we can argue they shouldn't, or that they should be supervised. Not that it's going to happen. Too many people slap a device in front of their kids with an unlimited data plan and no supervision. It's a hard problem to solve, probably as unsolvable as any other wide-scale problem.
- donkeyd 3y ago
  I've been on the internet since I was about 10 years old (I estimate). My parents knew (and understood) maybe 10% of what I did on there. As a minor, I did multiple criminal things online, some of them successful, others not so much. If I was a kid in 2023, I probably would've been arrested at some point in time. Because of what I know about the internet and because I know what kids will do with unlimited access, I think much of this burden should be with the parents. For every successful Omegle taken down, 3 more unknown ones will pop up. But major platforms like TikTok are also massive sources of grooming and parents happily give their 10 year olds a smart phone. As long as parents are never held accountable for their kids online behavior and the blame is put on service providers, this will only get worse. I know many examples of parents who track their kids' phones because they're scared something will happen to them in the real world. Meanwhile, these same parents pay no attention at all to where their kids venture in the online world, let alone with who. Parents need to be educated on this, fast.
  - subpixel 3y ago
    I volunteer in my local public school in the US. The sad fact is that stable family structure, by any definition, is collapsing and that kids are suffering. The percentage of kids in grade school who have an absent, incarcerated, addicted, mentally unhealthy, or generally dysfunctional parent is off the charts. Parents who are unable to give their kids the tools they need to avoid getting shunted into special education on account of their behavior are in no position to supervise their online activity. I make a habit of looking up kids parents on FB - it generally tracks that the worse the kids behavior and educational outlook, the greater the parent’s (singular in most cases) social media presence. I’m no longer surprised when I find a mother’s Onlyfans link, FFS. Where I live a full 1/3 of 1st graders are in a special education track. All the research points to the impact of the home and family on these outcomes. Tl;dr many parents are incapable of the rational parenting you suggest.
    - ParetoOptimal 3y ago
      > I’m no longer surprised when I find a mother’s Onlyfans link, FFS. It's far more likely that lower income is the reason for poor parenting than "mom has an onlyfans".
      - alexandre_m 3y ago
        There's a lot of money to be made in this industry. There was a local university student in UQAM who made the news a few years ago and she publicly bragged she was earning a million a year. Not everyone is going to be a top earner like this, but don't be delusional that it's only an option for lowest income individuals.
        ParetoOptimal 3y ago
        There was an implication that they didn't fulfill parenting duties in part because their job was onlyfans. If they were making a lot of money, and not as poor, there is a higher chance their parenting duties were fulfilled.
- slothtrop 3y ago
  you'll grant however that when we were young, it was more of an unknown wild west. Parents didn't know what to make of it or fear, there was generally more freedom afforded. We were the first generation with stupid-easy access to pirated pornography. No one had any idea of health concerns, at best you heard a blanket moral stance that didn't convince anyone. I think today parents have access to far better means of regulating access, should they so choose, and they're more conscious of it. I'm not saying it's fool-proof, but the overhead is enough to dissuade kids from spending too much time and getting into trouble.
hombre_fatal 3y ago
Focusing on nothing but parental neglect doesn't do much for the victims, though. Are we to look at all the kids that get groomed and manipulated by predators on a platform like Omegle and say "lol that sucks, wish you had better parents tho" or can we also elevate our expectations of platforms that connect kids to adults? For a platform that connects kids to rando adults, I would expect some sort of filter. Even a $1 join fee would have been better than what Omegle had (nothing).
Aurornis 3y ago
The legal situation is more complicated than blaming the parents. To extend your analogy: If someone had a business that rented cars and somehow 11 year olds were renting the cars and driving them, the rental car company couldn’t shrug it off and blame the parents. That’s why this is complicated: If a business knows criminal or dangerous activity is taking place on their platform, there is some obligation to make a good faith effort to address the situation. The expectation isn’t perfect enforcement because it’s not reasonable to shut every large business down as soon as 1 incident occurs, but if a platform becomes known as a haven for certain types of behavior then their liability continues to go up. Given how many people in this thread are joking about how Omegle was known as a free-for-all platform for people exposing themselves and as a platform for bored kids, it’s not surprising that the lawsuits are coming. Also, given their limited monetization options it’s not surprising that they choose to close rather than deal with legal battles.
- blharr 3y ago
  In this case, the car is the internet itself. Every form of social media is an open window for groomers and filled with abuse. You just don't see it as openly, and it's often relegated to DMs. But Instagram, X, Snapchat, Discord, Reddit, YouTube etc... and there are hundreds of influencers who use TikTok or other platforms to market their OnlyFans content, sometimes specifically focusing on younger demographics.
- maxwell 3y ago
  Did the 11 year old set up and pay for internet access? Sounds more like an 11 year old stole their parents' rental car and the family turned around and sued the rental car company. It's a stretch to even suggest Omegle was akin to "rental car company" since they didn't charge, it was more like a P2P car sharing app.

loxdalen 3y ago

Realistically, kids are on the Internet. I don't know when you were born, but my relationship to the Internet started probably around the time I was 7 or 8. My school had computers with Internet, there were two computers at home. My parents could have limited my Internet use but they couldn't have stopped me. There is not a guard standing by every computer stopping me from being Online if I am under 18 years of age. I still don't think Omegle is at fault, but we have to assume kids are on the Internet.

DeusExMachina 3y ago
They sure are, but we can argue they shouldn't, or that they should be supervised. Not that it's going to happen. Too many people slap a device in front of their kids with an unlimited data plan and no supervision. It's a hard problem to solve, probably as unsolvable as any other wide-scale problem.
donkeyd 3y ago
I've been on the internet since I was about 10 years old (I estimate). My parents knew (and understood) maybe 10% of what I did on there. As a minor, I did multiple criminal things online, some of them successful, others not so much. If I was a kid in 2023, I probably would've been arrested at some point in time. Because of what I know about the internet and because I know what kids will do with unlimited access, I think much of this burden should be with the parents. For every successful Omegle taken down, 3 more unknown ones will pop up. But major platforms like TikTok are also massive sources of grooming and parents happily give their 10 year olds a smart phone. As long as parents are never held accountable for their kids online behavior and the blame is put on service providers, this will only get worse. I know many examples of parents who track their kids' phones because they're scared something will happen to them in the real world. Meanwhile, these same parents pay no attention at all to where their kids venture in the online world, let alone with who. Parents need to be educated on this, fast.
- subpixel 3y ago
  I volunteer in my local public school in the US. The sad fact is that stable family structure, by any definition, is collapsing and that kids are suffering. The percentage of kids in grade school who have an absent, incarcerated, addicted, mentally unhealthy, or generally dysfunctional parent is off the charts. Parents who are unable to give their kids the tools they need to avoid getting shunted into special education on account of their behavior are in no position to supervise their online activity. I make a habit of looking up kids parents on FB - it generally tracks that the worse the kids behavior and educational outlook, the greater the parent’s (singular in most cases) social media presence. I’m no longer surprised when I find a mother’s Onlyfans link, FFS. Where I live a full 1/3 of 1st graders are in a special education track. All the research points to the impact of the home and family on these outcomes. Tl;dr many parents are incapable of the rational parenting you suggest.
  - ParetoOptimal 3y ago
    > I’m no longer surprised when I find a mother’s Onlyfans link, FFS. It's far more likely that lower income is the reason for poor parenting than "mom has an onlyfans".
    - alexandre_m 3y ago
      There's a lot of money to be made in this industry. There was a local university student in UQAM who made the news a few years ago and she publicly bragged she was earning a million a year. Not everyone is going to be a top earner like this, but don't be delusional that it's only an option for lowest income individuals.
      - ParetoOptimal 3y ago
        There was an implication that they didn't fulfill parenting duties in part because their job was onlyfans. If they were making a lot of money, and not as poor, there is a higher chance their parenting duties were fulfilled.
slothtrop 3y ago
you'll grant however that when we were young, it was more of an unknown wild west. Parents didn't know what to make of it or fear, there was generally more freedom afforded. We were the first generation with stupid-easy access to pirated pornography. No one had any idea of health concerns, at best you heard a blanket moral stance that didn't convince anyone. I think today parents have access to far better means of regulating access, should they so choose, and they're more conscious of it. I'm not saying it's fool-proof, but the overhead is enough to dissuade kids from spending too much time and getting into trouble.

hombre_fatal 3y ago

Focusing on nothing but parental neglect doesn't do much for the victims, though. Are we to look at all the kids that get groomed and manipulated by predators on a platform like Omegle and say "lol that sucks, wish you had better parents tho" or can we also elevate our expectations of platforms that connect kids to adults? For a platform that connects kids to rando adults, I would expect some sort of filter. Even a $1 join fee would have been better than what Omegle had (nothing).

Aurornis 3y ago

The legal situation is more complicated than blaming the parents. To extend your analogy: If someone had a business that rented cars and somehow 11 year olds were renting the cars and driving them, the rental car company couldn’t shrug it off and blame the parents. That’s why this is complicated: If a business knows criminal or dangerous activity is taking place on their platform, there is some obligation to make a good faith effort to address the situation. The expectation isn’t perfect enforcement because it’s not reasonable to shut every large business down as soon as 1 incident occurs, but if a platform becomes known as a haven for certain types of behavior then their liability continues to go up. Given how many people in this thread are joking about how Omegle was known as a free-for-all platform for people exposing themselves and as a platform for bored kids, it’s not surprising that the lawsuits are coming. Also, given their limited monetization options it’s not surprising that they choose to close rather than deal with legal battles.

blharr 3y ago
In this case, the car is the internet itself. Every form of social media is an open window for groomers and filled with abuse. You just don't see it as openly, and it's often relegated to DMs. But Instagram, X, Snapchat, Discord, Reddit, YouTube etc... and there are hundreds of influencers who use TikTok or other platforms to market their OnlyFans content, sometimes specifically focusing on younger demographics.
maxwell 3y ago
Did the 11 year old set up and pay for internet access? Sounds more like an 11 year old stole their parents' rental car and the family turned around and sued the rental car company. It's a stretch to even suggest Omegle was akin to "rental car company" since they didn't charge, it was more like a P2P car sharing app.