What is Omegle? What parents need to know

Omegle is one of the more popular video chat sites available online. It pairs random users identified as ‘You’ and ‘Stranger’ to chat online via ‘Text’, ‘Video’ or both.

A user can also choose to add their interests, and Omegle will try to pair a user with someone who has similar interests. If not, you could meet anyone. Chats are anonymous unless the user states who they are. Users can access it for free without signing up for an account.

There are many imitation apps such as ‘Chat for Omegle’, ‘Free Omegle Chat’ and ‘Omeglers’, but there is no longer an official Omegle app. All sites and apps appear to share the same features and purpose, but only some are linked to Omegle. Parents and carers should check which apps kids have installed on their phones and understand the risks each one presents.

The Omegle website is now closed. Any current Omegle sites are copycats.

Omegle permanently shut down its services. In an open letter to users on the Omegle home screen, founder Leif K-Brooks explained the decision. In summary, he explained the following points as reasons for shutting down Omegle.

• misuse of the platform, including “to commit unspeakably heinous crimes.”
• the “never-ending battle” of moderation and fighting such crimes.
• attacks directed at the platform. K-Brooks said, “the only way to please these people [attacking the platform] is to stop offering the service.” He also explains that these attacks lead to widespread fear, which wasn’t what he intended Omegle to do.
• stress and expenses from fighting to keep Omegle running safely and positively.

The decision came shortly after the Online Safety Act became law in the UK. This law will require platforms to enhance safety features for under-18s.

Like most social media sites, Omegle has a minimum age rating of 13 years with parental permission. Without parental permission, users must be 18 years or older.

Omegle was particularly popular in the US, UK, India and Mexico. It was also extremely popular among children and young people because a lot of social media influencers use and post about it.

Now that Omegle has closed, copycat sites have taken its place. Apps like Monkey, Kik and Y99 all have elements of anonymity that teens enjoy. Unfortunately, this leaves them open to greater risk.

Why do teens use anonymous apps?

Two teens share the apps they use now that Omegle is closed.

Risk of sharing or viewing inappropriate content

Omegle did have powerful moderation. It did not require registration or have age verification, and this is true for similar apps. Unfortunately, this makes young people a potential target for abuse online. Before closing, Omegle’s site stated “predators have been known to use Omegle, so please be careful.”

On these platforms, children and young people may be asked by strangers to share their name, age and location. So, it’s also important to talk to your child about sharing personal information online with strangers.

A BBC investigation found sexually explicit videos and live streams involving minors as young as 7 or 8 which spread across Omegle during the Covid-19 pandemic. BBC alerted the relevant authorities. However, there is still a risk of users unexpectedly coming across pornography and other types of inappropriate content on similar sites.

According to the BBC’s investigation, schools, police forces and governments issued warnings about Omegle in the UK, US, France, Norway, Canada and Australia. There were also investigations into online child abuse on Omegle along with reports of racism, extremist views, scams and cyberbullying.

Lack of moderation on video chat

The video chat had an adult, moderated and unmoderated option that could be easily accessible by underage users. Clicking the button, the users would directly join live video and text chat without warning which unfortunately allowed easy exposure to inappropriate content in a matter of seconds.

Additionally, the video chat option in these apps opens up the possibility for footage to be recorded and distributed without the user’s consent. This might have been a leading contributor to a growth in searches for Omegle porn videos.

Types of chat options:

• Adult – anyone could access this, which contained heavily explicit content and pornographic acts. The user confirmed by clicking a button and then redirected to an external site.
• Moderated chat – according to Omegle’s disclaimer, they moderated chats and said “… moderation is not perfect. You may still encounter people who misbehave.” However, they did not state how it did this effectively or how frequently.
• Unmoderated chat – this option came with a warning box advising the user they needed to be 18+, but an underage user could easily click ‘OK’ to enter. Users were highly likely to encounter risks such as online grooming along with sexually explicit and violent content.

Anonymous text chat

The text chat had a ‘spy’ function where users could act as the ‘spy’ and log on as a hidden 3rd party in a text chat between two people.

The ‘spy’ could then ask the other two users to discuss a particular topic/question and view their replies. Alternatively, a user could be the participant and discuss the question with another user.

A ‘spy’ could then exit without ending the chat between the other two users.

Common workarounds and searches

As with any blocked website or app, children often try to find alternatives. So, it’s important to have conversations about why sites like Omegle are blocked and how this helps keep them safe. Many Omegle alternatives may lead to cyber attacks, risk of online harm and more if accessed.

Still, popular searches that may come from young people include ‘Omegle unblocked’ as well as ‘How to get unbanned from Omegle’, which may have resulted from misuse of the platform or underage access.

There are other platforms and apps that teens might try to use if Omegle is blocked in their browser. They may also use these apps thinking they are Omegle itself. See some of the more common apps like Omegle below to help you stay aware of your child’s online activity.

Although there were prompts to encourage the safe use of the platform, Omegle did not have any parental controls.

According to Omegle, they monitored conversations, but despite stating ‘video is monitored, keep it clean’, children and young people visiting this section were likely to encounter numerous other users engaging in sexually explicit chat and activity putting them at risk.

There were no instructions on how a user could report other users or content, even though Omegle’s disclaimer advises that users could. There was also no block or mute feature either nor was there a robust enough system of monitoring or filtering video/text chats. On similar platforms, it’s important to enable parental controls on their phone and/or your home broadband.

In addition to the potential online risks, parents should also be aware of the danger of these conversations moving from Omegle to other platforms, or from online to offline, and potential meetups.

It’s important to understand that Omegle connects kids with strangers of any age, so we would advise parents to consider restricting the use of the platform for children under 18.

• Having regular conversations with your child about their online life is an important way to keep them safe online – such as chatting to strangers online.
• If they wish to communicate with others online, encourage them to use safe message boards like on the Childline and Ditch the Label websites
• Set up parental controls – you can enable filters, block certain websites and much more. Head over to our parental controls hub for more information
• Report it! If you suspect a child is a victim of online grooming or sexual abuse, report it immediately to CEOP or contact the police