The Real Reason that Omegle Shut Down

The concept behind Omegle was elegantly simple: upon logging in, you were randomly paired with another user for a chat session. These interactions could last as long or as briefly as you desire. If, for any reason, you felt disinclined to continue a conversation with a particular individual, you could effortlessly terminate the chat and, if you wish, immediately initiate a new one with someone else. This mechanism encapsulated the essence of “meeting new people” in its purest form, stripping away any complexities and providing a direct, unadulterated experience of spontaneous social interaction.

Omegle offered a unique platform where anonymity and spontaneity converged, creating an environment ripe for unexpected encounters. The unpredictability of who you might meet next added an element of excitement and intrigue. Whether you were looking for a meaningful conversation, a quick exchange of pleasantries, or simply a way to pass the time, Omegle catered to a wide array of social needs.

That was, until pedophiles realized that this was the best place for them to lurk.

What Went Wrong with Omegle

A victim of sexual grooming filed a $22 million lawsuit against Omegle in 2021, claiming that the company failed to provide enough child safety measures, which led to the 11-year-old girl falling prey to a sadistic pedophile.  The website lacks both age verification and a safeguard against matching adults with children.  The lawsuit, which was submitted in November 2021 in Oregon, stated that in 2014, an 11-year-old girl who went by the name “A.M.” registered on Omegle with the intention of connecting with other girls her same age.

Son with the culprit, matthew manoski, one of the people who were the key reasons Omegle had to shut down

However, she was paired with Ryan Scott Fordyce, a Canadian pedophile (whose profile can be accessed here) who was in his late 30s at the time and is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence.  Ryan Fordyce was a Team Lead Customer Sales at Westman Communications Group. Fordyce coerced the helpless girl into giving him her offline contact information, which he would use to harm her and her family if she did not keep sending him the material he requested.  According to the lawsuit, Fordyce first requested to view pictures of the child’s “smiling,” but soon after, he also started requesting pictures of her “breasts, vagina, and other portions of her body.”

The man would coerce A.M. into complying with his more bizarre demands by threatening to send the girl’s mother the pictures, threatening to “disown her” or have her evicted from the residence. In addition, Fordyce would threaten to abduct A.M. and hurt her family if she disobeyed him.  Additionally, the predator forced A.M. to join him in group chats with other pedophiles, where she was forced to watch as he exchanged and sold her pictures.  “Omegle continued to feature substantially into the abuse,” the lawsuit claims, with Fordyce eventually sending A.M. to find him new young girls to groom and use.

If you visit the Omegle website now, this is what you will see

From the age of 11 to 15, A.M. suffered abuse; her torment would not stop until 2018, when Canadian law police conducted a sting operation and recognized her from a school hoodie she was wearing in one of Fordyce’s pictures. In the end, they were able to extract nearly 3,000 files containing media that exploited children from Fordyce’s devices, 220 of which included A.M.  Due to her assault by Fordyce, A.M. is currently experiencing severe trauma, which includes anxiety, despair, and PTSD symptoms. After learning about the suffering her daughter went through while living under her own roof, her mother is affected similarly.

Omegle was aware, or should have been aware, that its platform is exploited by predators to groom and sexually exploit children. Despite this knowledge, Omegle failed to implement necessary measures to prevent such crimes. This negligence in design and manufacturing has emboldened and incentivized these predatory users to continue their abusive and malicious behavior.

Between May 2015 and May 2021, the text on Omegle’s homepage included a sentence that read: “Predators have been known to use Omegle, so please be careful.” Rather than serving as a caution, this statement admits that Omegle was well aware of the crimes occurring against children on its platform. Despite this knowledge, Omegle permits users as young as thirteen, although in reality, users can often be as young as eleven, or even younger. These young users lack the cognitive and judgment abilities necessary to understand the warnings or make informed decisions regarding their use of the platform.

Lawsuit can be accessed here.

Omegle failed to implement several critical ameliorative actions to protect its users, particularly minors. These actions include identifying and banning predatory users through language detection in chats and its purported video monitoring function. Additionally, Omegle could have employed common software to flag specific phrases frequently used by offenders and included a “Report” or “Abusive Content” button on the chat screen to enable user reporting. The platform also neglected to change its policy to restrict access only to adults aged 18 and older and did not integrate an effective age verification mechanism to ensure minors could not use the unmonitored video section of the site.

Furthermore, Omegle failed to require user registration with a name or phone number to trace misconduct and did not make its product available through third-party marketplaces like Apple and Google, where customer verification and download records are maintained. Lastly, Omegle did not staff a community standards and safety department with human oversight to monitor and address safety concerns. Omegle failed to protect its users from potential harm by neglecting these measures.

Matthew Monoski Incident — Omegle’s Final Straw

In June of 2023, Tiktoker Nicoiscold posted a video of a man named Matthew Monoski, who was in his late thirties, approaching young girls on Omegle with horrible, sexually driven requests. In one of the videos that finally pinned him down, he asks a young girl, all of sixteen, to get up and undress for him. It is also important to know that just moments before, he had said that his own daughter was of her age.

Matthew Monoski, by all means, was an Omegle predator.

It is unclear what Nico would’ve planned to do with the content. He might’ve been interested in just spreading the word, and there’s nothing wrong with that, either. However, the video became a sensation overnight, and the likes and views poured in. It wasn’t long before the video came to the attention of Mr. Monoski’s family. And the authorities, who were also intrigued by the criminal virtually trying to coerce a young kid into doing something horrible.

Once the authorities knew who this man was and about his ill intentions, they immediately set out to nab the Omegle predator. For such horrendous, terrible people need to be locked up behind bars for a long, long time. And once they started to investigate, it wasn’t long before they found enough evidence and content to lock him up for good. Mr. Monoski hadn’t been just targeting people online. He had been abusing some of his close family for a while as well.

Matthew Monoski, the Omegle predator

Once the young girl who was abused by the monster gave out her testimony with evidence, Mr. Monoski didn’t have a chance. Matthew Manoski was arrested in October 2023. He reportedly responded to the allegations by saying, “If I ever did anything she didn’t like, she should have told me to stop.” The charges against him claim that the molestations occurred between December 2020 and July 1, 2023. He had been arrested before for driving and crashing his car while under the influence.

Police say the 11-year-old girl found it easier to write than discuss allegations of being molested over a period of a few years by a 53-year-old Valparaiso man she referred to as Pappy.

She said the inappropriate touching began when she was 9 and occurred repeatedly with family members in the same house.”I think one time we were at the dining room table, and I was sitting on his lap, and it was kind of like, under and hidden,” she told investigators. Matthew Manoski was arrested Friday night and was still in custody Monday morning at the Porter County jail, facing a single felony count of child molesting, records show.

When Manoski was confronted about the allegations before police were involved, he reportedly replied, “If I ever did anything she didn’t like, she should have told me to stop.” Valparaiso police said they were notified of the allegations in July and watched as the child asked to write about, rather than discuss the allegations. She said Manoski, who is not a biological family member, would typically begin by massaging her shoulders and then move on to touch her inappropriately, police said.

The son of Matthew reaches out to clear dad’s name

The second cousin of Mathew Manoski, who was caught on Omegle

A detective who asked Nico for more information on Matthew

The girl said she would try to move away, but “he would try to pull me back sometimes.” According to the charging document, she described one incident of it occurring when her mother was baking in a nearby kitchen.

“When asked, she indicated that Manoski did not say anything to her after these incidents,” police said. The girl said the molestations occurred once or twice a week during one period and a couple times a month during other times. The charge claims the molestations occurred between December 2020 and July 1, 2023. He can be contacted here, if you’d like to talk to him.

Next, read about the Man Who Was Murdered For Winning a Lottery, and then, The Story of Randy Adams, the US Sergeant.