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Omegle is an anonymous chat website that’s been around since 2009. It skyrocketed in popularity during the pandemic while everyone was home. However, Omegle is unsafe for kids because it’s free, has no registration, and there’s no age registration to use the site.
In this article, we'll explain what Omegle is, highlight the risks it poses to kids, and offer valuable tips on how to keep your children safe online (including the best antivirus software with parental controls).
Omegle, an online chat platform, was created in 2009 by American Leif K-Brooks. Omegle quickly became popular because it offered a fresh and exciting way to meet new people. Users are instantly paired with a random stranger for a text chat or video chat session when they visit the platform. Omegle’s complete anonymity is the most significant allure to its site.
Sounds harmless, right? Hardly. Omegle is flawed way beyond a poor user experience — its impact is far more sinister than that.
Omegle’s anonymous nature is a breeding ground for crimes against children. The website lacks age verification and parental controls, creating a risky environment for young users.
Omegle’s landing page says, “Omegle video chat is moderated, but no moderation is perfect. Users are solely responsible for their behavior while using Omegle.” Omegle also has an unmoderated section, but all it requires is that users check a box to confirm they’re 18 or older to use it.
While Omegle’s Community Guidelines state that inappropriate conduct and content are not allowed and can result in bans, they’re rarely enforced.
Omegle has five significant risks on its platform: online predators, exposure to explicit content, malware, exposure to extremism, and cyberbullying.
Did you know that a child is sexually assaulted in the United States every 9 minutes?[2] This has been exacerbated by the explosion of online chat sites, including Omegle. In 2021, the BBC launched an investigation into Omegle. Over the 10 hours the BBC spent on Omegle, investigators were paired with dozens of minors as young as 7.[3]
Omegle’s predator problem is so serious that it’s facing a class-action lawsuit. In A.M. v. Omegle.com LLC, an American woman sued Omegle for $22 million, saying that Omegle paired her with a man in his 30s from Manitoba, who abused her for years.[4] According to Bloomberg, the lawsuit claims Omegle is “a defectively designed product that failed to restrict access to children or ban known predatory users.”[5] In the same case, Omegle was also accused of earning revenue by engaging in sex trafficking.
Children seeing things they shouldn’t see is almost a rite of passage on Omegle. One of our content contributors can attest to this. She vividly remembers using Omegle with a friend when she was 16.
Immediately after logging on to the platform, both teens witnessed a man performing lewd acts on himself. As the pair continued to use Omegle that evening, they saw more inappropriate content. The girls were also obviously underage, but the people online didn't seem to care. Ultimately, our contributor never touched Omegle again.
The BBC had a similar experience exploring Omegle for the first time. In the 2021 BBC investigation, the BBC saw multiple instances of abusive material in just 2 hours. According to one American teen interviewed by the BBC about Omegle, "Men being gross is something I and my friends see a lot. It should be better monitored. It's like the dark web but for everyone."[3]
Just as the distribution of illicit material is rampant on the dark web, it’s also happening on the Omegle platform. Preteens and teenagers regularly expose themselves on Omegle, creating self-generated abusive content. The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) — an English nonprofit dedicated to removing child abuse material online — said it found “self-generated abuse material elsewhere on the internet which has been created by predators who have captured and distributed footage from Omegle.”[3]
Omegle can also be risky due to various cybersecurity concerns. Although Omegle's official website is not designed to transmit malware and computer viruses, users on the platform can share links in chat rooms. Scammers and hackers can exploit this system to redirect individuals to phishing websites or prompt them to download malware onto their devices.
Sadly, hacking is all too common as well. Videos, messages, and metadata collected by Omegle, including text logs, IP addresses, timestamps, and video screenshots for moderation purposes, can be illicitly accessed and employed for committing online crimes against users.
In addition, storing chat logs on Omegle's servers poses the risk of data leaks and breaches, which could result in users' personal data, photos, and videos being sold on the dark web.
Another concerning event taking place on Omegle is extremism. Supporters of hate speech and extremism have taken to Omegle to spread racism, homophobia, and xenophobia. For example, in 2020, NBC ran a story called “Racism is rampant on Omegle. Teens are working to hold racist trolls accountable.” Two teenagers recorded their experiences on Omegle to show the racism, homophobia, and antisemitism they encountered on the platform. One incident involved a masked man telling the two teens a racist riddle. Another video shows a mashup of xenophobic and racist slurs.
This is not surprising, given Omegle’s reputation for hosting harmful content. University of Southern California’s Allissa V. Richardson, Assistant Professor of Journalism, describes Omegle as the “Wild West” of the internet. “I think these kinds of racist incidents have occurred since the inception of Omegle, but… social media then allows [people] to amplify the abuse in ways we couldn't do before,” explains Richardson.[6]
Another danger on Omegle is cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is bullying that happens digitally through phones, computers, or tablets. It includes name-calling, spreading lies, sending inappropriate pictures, making threats, and sharing explicit photos without permission.
Cyberbullying severely affects young people's mental health and wellbeing. They can develop low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety, face family problems, struggle academically, engage in delinquent behaviors, suffer physical symptoms, and experience suicidal thoughts or attempts. A 2022 Pew Research study shows that 50% of teens aged 13 to 17 report being bullied or harassed online, and further research shows that students who have experienced cyberbullying are twice as likely to attempt suicide.[7]
TikTok, another popular platform among teens, comes with its own threats. Discriminatory and extremist content is prevalent on TikTok. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) reveals that 30% of the TikTok videos they analyzed promoted white supremacy and 24% supported extremism. ISIS propaganda and Holocaust denial are also featured on TikTok.
As for data privacy concerns, TikTok is now paying the price for its lax policies. On September 15, 2023, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined TikTok €368 million for not safeguarding kids' privacy.
Tired of dealing with issues stemming from TikTok? Check out our guide to making TikTok safe for kids.
Ensuring your children's online safety requires proactive measures. Luckily, there are many resources on how to stay safe online, especially for your kids.
Here are some tips to keep your kids safe while using Omegle and other online platforms:
Any combination of these tactics (or, better yet, all) will decrease your child’s likelihood of being victimized on sites like Omegle.
Affordable parental control software
Allows for whitelisting
Less features for iOS
We’ve reviewed several programs on the market and highly recommend these three antivirus software that include parental controls:
Get McAfee | Read Our McAfee Review
Get Norton 360 | Read Our Norton Family | Read Our Norton 360 Review
All-in-one protection for your personal info and privacy
Excellent antivirus protection
Additional features like a file shredder and parental controls
Multiple pop-ups for text notifications can be annoying
Yes, Omegle can save your text and video chat history and share your personal information with service providers and law enforcement. People can track your location through links using an internet protocol (IP) grabber, freely available online.
Omegle is dangerous due to the risks of online predators, exposure to explicit content, malware, exposure to extremism, and cyberbullying. We do not recommend Omegle for anyone under 18.
You can use Omegle at your own risk, but we recommend anyone below 18 avoiding the site. Chief Parenting Officer Titania Jordan of parental control app Bark put it best on LinkedIn: "I don't know of any parent who wants their kid to talk to strangers.”
Here are three safe choices you can suggest to your kids instead of Omegle:
Omegle is riddled with safety concerns for children and teens. Its anonymous design, lack of moderation, and failure to address its flaws reveal a platform prioritizing profit over child protection.
Due to the many risks of using Omegle, we strongly recommend antivirus, a VPN, and parental controls to protect your kids online. If your children still want to chat on the internet, there are safer alternatives than Omegle, such as KidsChat, 321 Chat, and KidzWorld.
We hope you never have to report a crime, but if you do, the U.S. Department of Justice details how to do so. You can also report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline.
If you stay informed, follow these tips, and implement the right software, your kids will be far safer online than the average child. For VPN recommendations, check out our guide to the best VPNs to better protect your kids' internet experience.
Affordable parental control software
Allows for whitelisting
Less features for iOS
[1] Average monthly traffic to Omegle.com worldwide from November 2022 to January 2023
[3] Omegle: Children expose themselves on video chat site
[5] Omegle.com Seeks Summary Judgment in Sex Trafficking Lawsuit
[6] Racism is rampant on Omegle. Teens are working to hold racist trolls accountable.
[7] Teens and Cyberbullying 2022
