Technology

100% monitoring and control doesn’t exist. Your children will find a loophole to access unrestricted internet, it’s what they do.

And it's your job as a parent to ensure that they are equipped with good decision making skills so if/when they do encounter the 'big world' that they don't fall for predators or scams.

And that means that we need to rely on society to establish safer norms, safer streets, etc, so that there’s a “soft landing” when kids inevitably rebel, or when the parent is in the shower for 15 minutes.

It's not our job as society to grind down all the sharp edges of the world, especially when adults enjoy those sharp edges. It's our job as society to create defined and expected levels of risk and enforce them. For example, we make drivers generally responsible for watching where they're going, and we make crosswalks that are 'guaranteed safe' places to cross the street. So if you're willing to take risks you can cross wherever, and if you want to be sure you're safe there's a crosswalk. The level of risk is your choice.

The thing with the Internet is that it's there for everyone. You can't establish 'safer streets, soft landings' on the Internet without restricting what consenting adults can get. And there's currently no technology to verify someone's age without seriously invading their privacy.

Filtering Internet is and should be a client side problem. Had this parent installed one of the numerous Internet filtering products produced for this exact purpose, the did wouldn't have gotten groomed/abducted. Had this parent had a conversation with their kid about bad people online and offline, the kid would have told the rapist to fuck off and closed Omegle. There's several things that the parent could and should have done which fall under the realm of basic expectations of parents, and they didn't. That left their daughter open to being exploited by an awful person. NONE of that is Omegle's fault.

But switching gears- you talk about soft landings. What do you think should be the answer here? Do you think a site like Omegle shouldn't be allowed to exist? Where do you feel the responsibility of the parent and the site and society lies?