Omegle, a chat forum that allowed users to text and video chat with strangers from all around the world without having to register, has been shut down. The closure comes after numerous reports of child exploitation and abuse on the platform.
According to Mimmi Nöjd, the preliminary investigation leader at the police grooming group in Stockholm, Omegle had become a breeding ground for sexual exploitation of children. “We have seen a lot of crap caused by Omegle and children who have felt very bad,” she said in DN’s podcast Spotlight.
Nöjd revealed that the investigative group ISÖB, which investigates internet-related sexual abuse of children in Stockholm, frequently encountered cases involving Omegle. “In those cases, it is children who have been subjected to sexual molestation, perhaps through exposure or by themselves being forced to pose sexually, undress, or commit pure abuse against themselves in a video chat with a perpetrator,” she explained.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported that over 600,000 cases of child exploitation were expected to be reported on Omegle in 2022. Nöjd highlighted the design of Omegle, which made it easy for perpetrators to find victims. “They only need to press a button to randomly select a new user. And there are infinite users,” she said.
In a landmark case in 2021, an American woman sued Omegle because the site enabled the abuse she suffered as a child. One of her demands was for the site to be shut down for good. In early November, Omegle’s founder made the decision to shut down the chat forum, thanking the woman for opening his eyes to the harm caused by the platform.
Nöjd is confident that the closure of Omegle will significantly impact the number of cases at ISÖB. “It will definitely be felt in our influx of cases, I’m actually sure of that. There is still some that comes from there that we will now no longer get,” she said. She particularly emphasized the impact on exposure cases, where perpetrators would casually expose themselves to children on the platform.
The closure of Omegle marks a significant step in the fight against online child exploitation and abuse. Nöjd hopes that this will serve as a crucial deterrent for perpetrators and protect children from falling victim to such heinous crimes in the future. The full story can be heard on DN’s podcast Spotlight about Omegle.