I felt like, oh, hey, thanks for the news, I had no idea, and move on, but something clicked when I noticed the lifetime - 10+years. I have not used Omegle even once, I have zero sentiment, and I barely know what's it about (kinda snapchat or chatroulette, etc), but OK, 10+ must be something, so I checked why shutdown now.
I haven't read the whole text here on screenshot, I haven't read the history or timeline, but damn it, yet another child-abuse shitstorm? It's sad what is happening apparently all over the world. Crusades-for-ABC everywhere. In the name of protecting-the-ABC let's purge-DEF cause world-will-be-better-without-XYZ. Like that ever helped before :|
Years ago there was a rule, I think it was called safe-harbour rule. A public service provider was not responsible for how customers use the service, provided that the provider cooperated in tracing/removing/etc content that breaks the law for some reason. Why there's now so much pressure for controlling everything and offloading the shit that education/parents/family/lawyers/priests/police/younameit/etc should do onto the service providers?
I saw a number somewhere, one case exploded now, some 50 cases were open as well. Ok. That sounds bad. I can see their pain. But in the country-wide or global scale (no idea how far Omegle really worked), that's (probably) a small number. Quick ball-bark cross-referencing that number with any other 'child-abusive' area, say, religion/priests. I heard larger numbers in stats for my country, and religious zealots were VERY GOOD at hiding those cases from the public. Does someone shutdown religion? That's hundreds of years of all sorts of abuse.
I have no idea what was going on there at Omegle. Did Omegle staff take part in setting up those meetings, etc? Alright, prosecute them. So many things could go wrong with a large-scale company with lots of employees. Trace and prosecute every single of them to the fullest. But why shutdown the whole service? But how killing a service will make kids safer? That's just nonsense. Offenders will just find another channel. If there were some in the company, they'll get hired elsewhere and continue or switch methods. If there were some abusive customers, they'll just switch to different software, even easier thing.
Was the problem at Omegle organization, product, operationmode, whatever, so glaring and so luring that abusers/pedophiles/etc loved it so much more than other services? Fucking great! Keep service alive, use it to the full extent to trace those bastards. You keep running, they keep buzzing, whoever you can catch while until they notice something's wrong, that's a win. Don't want to use kids as a bait? Use technology. Use deep-fakes. But that costs money and costs effort. Shutdown is so easy and wow huge win in the media. But you shutdown, offenders they spread, move and hide. You had them in one place, now you have them ... where? Spread out elsewhere. We won't hear about the problem for a moment. Huge win, eh? Kids from the block were beating weaklings secretly behind a dumpster, so we got rid of the dumpster, case closed, problem solved. Yay.
I cooled down a bit, I wont redact above text or whatever. I dont know Omegle, I dont know the case, I may be wrong. Maybe in this case that's the best way, or maybe not. Maybe I got things wrong? Happens. Some personal trigger fired off and I produced a wall of nonsense text? Maybe. Sorry for wasting your time dear reader. Really. Thanks for taking the time to read up to here to read that 'sorry'.
But the last line is well-thought and stated well:
This goddamn pattern of fixing-things-by-erasure, happily destroying/banning/whatever all sort things instead of fixing the real core of the problem, is not a true solution, it's one of the problems that also need to be solved.
Welcome to machine,...
I felt like, oh, hey, thanks for the news, I had no idea, and move on, but something clicked when I noticed the lifetime - 10+years. I have not used Omegle even once, I have zero sentiment, and I barely know what's it about (kinda snapchat or chatroulette, etc), but OK, 10+ must be something, so I checked why shutdown now.
I haven't read the whole text here on screenshot, I haven't read the history or timeline, but damn it, yet another child-abuse shitstorm? It's sad what is happening apparently all over the world. Crusades-for-ABC everywhere. In the name of protecting-the-ABC let's purge-DEF cause world-will-be-better-without-XYZ. Like that ever helped before :|
Years ago there was a rule, I think it was called safe-harbour rule. A public service provider was not responsible for how customers use the service, provided that the provider cooperated in tracing/removing/etc content that breaks the law for some reason. Why there's now so much pressure for controlling everything and offloading the shit that education/parents/family/lawyers/priests/police/younameit/etc should do onto the service providers?
I saw a number somewhere, one case exploded now, some 50 cases were open as well. Ok. That sounds bad. I can see their pain. But in the country-wide or global scale (no idea how far Omegle really worked), that's (probably) a small number. Quick ball-bark cross-referencing that number with any other 'child-abusive' area, say, religion/priests. I heard larger numbers in stats for my country, and religious zealots were VERY GOOD at hiding those cases from the public. Does someone shutdown religion? That's hundreds of years of all sorts of abuse.
I have no idea what was going on there at Omegle. Did Omegle staff take part in setting up those meetings, etc? Alright, prosecute them. So many things could go wrong with a large-scale company with lots of employees. Trace and prosecute every single of them to the fullest. But why shutdown the whole service? But how killing a service will make kids safer? That's just nonsense. Offenders will just find another channel. If there were some in the company, they'll get hired elsewhere and continue or switch methods. If there were some abusive customers, they'll just switch to different software, even easier thing.
Was the problem at Omegle organization, product, operationmode, whatever, so glaring and so luring that abusers/pedophiles/etc loved it so much more than other services? Fucking great! Keep service alive, use it to the full extent to trace those bastards. You keep running, they keep buzzing, whoever you can catch while until they notice something's wrong, that's a win. Don't want to use kids as a bait? Use technology. Use deep-fakes. But that costs money and costs effort. Shutdown is so easy and wow huge win in the media. But you shutdown, offenders they spread, move and hide. You had them in one place, now you have them ... where? Spread out elsewhere. We won't hear about the problem for a moment. Huge win, eh? Kids from the block were beating weaklings secretly behind a dumpster, so we got rid of the dumpster, case closed, problem solved. Yay.
I cooled down a bit, I wont redact above text or whatever. I dont know Omegle, I dont know the case, I may be wrong. Maybe in this case that's the best way, or maybe not. Maybe I got things wrong? Happens. Some personal trigger fired off and I produced a wall of nonsense text? Maybe. Sorry for wasting your time dear reader. Really. Thanks for taking the time to read up to here to read that 'sorry'.
But the last line is well-thought and stated well:
This goddamn pattern of fixing-things-by-erasure, happily destroying/banning/whatever all sort things instead of fixing the real core of the problem, is not a true solution, it's one of the problems that also need to be solved.
You're absolutely right, except about wasting my time. Only your apology was a waste of time, IMHO.
Thanks!