The video chat website Omegle is shutting down after 14 years, following user claims of abuse.
The service, which allowed users to socialize with random strangers online, grew in popularity with children and young people during the pandemic.
Founder Leif Brooks said in a statement that operating the website was „no longer sustainable, financially nor psychologically”.
This week, Ofcom issued its first guidance for tech platforms to comply with the UK Online Safety Act and the communications regulator singled out online grooming.
Omegle has long been the subject of controversy, including in a landmark case where a young American accused the platform of randomly pairing her with a paedophile.
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. However, Brooks did admit that „There can be no honest accounting of Omegle without acknowledging that some people misused it, including to commit unspeakably heinous crimes.”
But the announcement also drew comments from users on social media who shared their favourite memories of Omegle, ranging from surprise to nostalgia.
Still, the BBC found that Omegle has been mentioned in more than 50 cases against paedophiles in countries including the UK, US and Australia. Video-sharing platform TikTok banned sharing links to Omegle, after a BBC investigation in 2021 found what appeared to be children exposing themselves to strangers on the website. Imagery of young children carrying out sexual acts on camera has risen by 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.
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