Omegle shuts down after 14 years

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 9) — Omegle, the free online chat website that lets users talk to random strangers online, has officially shut down after 14 years of operation.

Omegle.com currently displays a letter from its founder, Leif K Brooks, and an image of the Omegle logo on a gravestone in place of the regular interface.

"As much as I wish circumstances were different, the stress and expense of this fight – coupled with the existing stress and expense of operating Omegle, and fighting its misuse – are simply too much," Brooks said.

"Operating Omegle is no longer sustainable, financially nor psychologically," he added. "Frankly, I don’t want to have a heart attack in my 30s."

Omegle features a straightforward layout: Users enter a keyword to connect with people who share their interests, or they can leave it blank. After that, users choose whether to text or have a live video chat with the stranger.

It didn't ask for an age or require the user to log in using their username or email. Rather, a person is matched instantaneously with a randomly selected individual known only as "Stranger."

"If the Internet is a manifestation of the 'global village', Omegle was meant to be a way of strolling down a street in that village, striking up conversations with the people you ran into along the way," Brooks said.

"These chats could be as long or as short as you chose. If you didn’t want to talk to a particular person, for whatever reason, you could simply end the chat and – if desired – move onto another chat with someone else," he explained.

Aside from misuse of the website, Brooks also cited "a constant barrage of attacks on communication services, Omegle included, based on the behavior of a malicious subset of users."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were shut down, the website gained prominence. However, the site is said to have become a key tool in an uptick in child sextortion and luring instances that followed its rise.

Launched in 2009, the US-based website became particularly well-known during the COVID-19 pandemic when a greater number of individuals, including children, stayed indoors and went online.

As a result, an expert said Omegle seemed to have become a facilitator in the uptick in sexual exploitation of children, with lawsuits alleging the site of being responsible for what happened to them. 

"Virtually every tool can be used for good or for evil, and that is especially true of communication tools, due to their innate flexibility," Brooks said. "There can be no honest accounting of Omegle without acknowledging that some people misused it, including to commit unspeakably heinous crimes."

The founder said the platform had aided law enforcement and "put evildoers in prison where they belong" after Omegle collected evidence against them.

Even though Brooks has "always welcomed constructive feedback," he claimed that the most recent attacks on the website "have felt anything but constructive."

"The only way to please these people is to stop offering the service," he said.

Brooks thanked those who used Omegle for good and made a contribution to the website's success.

"Omegle" was the most popular Google search term in the Philippines in 2019.