I think I'd usually have to connect and disconnect two or three times before I found another human face and not a, uh, head. Although sometimes we'd have a seemingly normal conversation for a bit and then whoever we were talking to would pan the camera down and reveal that he was cranking it.
Fun stuff!
Omegle has been a great place for content creators [1], people learning languages [2], LGBT youth escaping their religious/rural upbringings, etc.
I hope you don't take this fight to VRChat [3, 4, etc]. That might just be too much freedom for people.
Shame on people trying to kill these platforms.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbjpkSkJvw8 (CodeMiko regularly trolls Omegle)
[2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/D4bbyY_0Wng (this is great)
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1T6X_B9CI (just skimming these, but it's innocent fun)
By that logic you could say the same thing about every single porn site.
According to the BBC, it was only after “Alice” filed the lawsuit that they added a checkbox saying you had to be 18+.
Children 13+ were formally allowed to use the site with parental permission until after the lawsuit at issue was filed, but even that restriction was just, I think, a pro-forma fine print footer notice to provide CYA against COPPA requirements on sites that were directed at kids under 13.
Parents should be responsible for their own children. They shouldn't keep trying to remove things from the world they deem as unfriendly to their children. If they dislike the Wild West of the Internet, they can create their own digital curfew and rules.
If you're looking for absolute, unfettered fuck-the-law freedom you're not going to find it on the open web. No administrator is going to be willing to take the bullet for you.
If you mean, for instance, Kiwifarms - their ISP and Cloudflare refused to do business with them for reasons other than being "antiliberal." You can't blame opposition to heinous behavior, or not wanting to do business with or be associated with KF, on simply being opposed to free speech. But they still exist, AFAIK. Gab was similarly "cancelled" by their host and service providers, because the platform itself and its behavior had become too toxic to be associated with, and violated terms of service for those partners.
Again, free speech doesn't guarantee a platform - it's a marketplace of ideas and you have to convince people your ideas are worth their time, doubly so where business associations are involved. Gab was fine until they started planning an insurrection and cheering on mass shooters. Trump was fine until he lost his mind and threatened the peaceful transfer of power. Omegele was fine until someone sued over the one thing Omegele is known for. There are always limits, everywhere. There are plenty of reasons to not want to be associated with such platforms and their content besides opposition to freedom of speech, but conflating everything into the actions of an "antiliberal movement" seems like bad faith.
So I don't know. You see attacks on free speech, I see the inevitable consequences of bad actors pushing things too far.
And I still wouldn't hold up Omegle as an example of the same class of problem. Freedom of speech should cover political disagreement and debate, but it shouldn't cover sexual abuse.
Every web site I ever built with ANY political content was vandalized by my hosting providers then disabled.
Also, Omegle didn't host political content. Also, no one vandalized it or took it down until someone sued the site owners over a crime being committed, not for any political expression.
I dream of being able to healthy discuss stuff like "illegal crossing/immigration of mexicans" or "US gun control/freedom" , or even more touchy subjects like "pedophilia, as a mental sickness".
But in a place that is heavily moderated, free if bigots, knee jerk reactions and all those behaviours that online discussions are plagued with.
I am a Mexican myself, and I love being subscribed to the r/ccw subreddit (concealed carry). I've learned a lot and although I dont agree with a lot of the culture there, i am happy to try understand where pro-gun people are coming from.
There is nuance to every issue, and the only real way to make progress is to be able to establish a dialogue bringing forward and listening to all sides of the conversation.
You call those "touchy subjects"? Do "Jewish history" and watch it get shut down in a week.
You also can’t generally criticize the police or military or social order beyond the standard “everybody knows” talking points.
Honest discussions of how society should deal with and treat people who are afflicted with pedophilia is another. There are entire swaths of viewpoints which are basically not allowed to be expressed, including most/all of the compassionate ones.
Criminal justice reform and the prison-industrial complex.
Atheism.
Suicide, and people’s rights thereto.
Drug usage, and people’s rights thereto.
The occasional need and right of a populace to employ violent revolution to secure human rights.
The illegitimacy of state violence.
Artistic nudity (I’m a portrait photographer).
Non-artistic nudity (porn is great).
Artistic non-mainstream porn (weird BDSM stuff is great).
Individual responsibility of people doing immoral jobs. People get absolutely outraged at true reporting of facts (“John Doe, whilst at $EMPLOYER, implemented unethical feature $X”).
Criticism of group identity, or discussion of the legitimacy of identity politics in general.
Jokes or memes about any of the previous, or sexual violence, or tragic deaths.
Increasingly, anti-war viewpoints. The global west is heavily invested in any enemies of Russia or China being unswervingly supported. Being anti-war is more and more a fringe position that is subject to censorship.
Criticizing the major publishing platforms, on those platforms themselves. You won’t be able to run an Amazon workers union site on AWS, for example. Nor can you discuss CCP censorship on TikTok.
Lots of things are off limits in most parts of the internet. People who think the only people complaining about the restrictions on speech online are nazis or pedos are... fairly unimaginative.
In terms of having actual discussion, sneak laid out a good range of topics that quickly get derailed in flame wars (IME). I'll personally add homelessness and mental health as a few more very touchy topics.
I know high quality, nuanced discussion isn't a 1st amendment right, but that's what the other half of the conversation wants while most argue with the strawman half that wants to be racist/sexist online.