Tyler Austin Erickson

I mean the headline says it all. 20-year-old Tyler Austin Erickson of Salt Lake City has been charged with attempted rape of a child, aggravated sexual abuse of a child, lewdness involving a child and enticing a minor. Erickson allegedly met a 12-year-old girl on the website Omegle.

Again, for  the uninitiated, Omegle is a website whose tagline is “Talk to strangers!” Omegle lets people engage in video chats with random people. There are no real age checks on Omegle. They say that they monitor the chats that take place but I have to wonder how well monitored they are if a 20-year-old man is grooming a 12-year-old girl, but I digress. And again, I can’t stress this enough, but Omegle is not an app. There’s no icon to look for on any of your kid’s devices. It’s a website that you have to check the device’s browser history to see if it’s being accessed. Any device with a web browser, and an internet connection and a camera can access the video chats on Omegle.

Getting back to Erickson, he was caught with the girl at the girl’s grandmother’s house. During the investigation, police found messages between the two where they were talking about having a baby together. Prepare your mind bleach.

“Tyler and the juvenile victim had made previous arrangements to meet for sexual encounters if their first encounter was not successful in completing the goal of making the juvenile pregnant.”

Ick.

Anyway, any unmonitored internet device is just an open doorway between predators and your kids.

This week Trench talks more about guns in schools, Creep of the Week, and Armslist.

You’re not alone. Confidential help is available for free.  National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.  Call 1-800-273-8255. Available 24 hours everyday.

Grandfather of Colegio Cervantes shooter has $6 million seized: https://wp.me/p3Qxf-kKy

Students saw gun prior to Bellaire HS shooting: https://wp.me/p3Qxf-kNH

Active shooter Insurance: https://wp.me/p3Qxf-kMz

19-year-old sentenced for buying ‘new school shooter’ gun for friend: https://wp.me/p3Qxf-kNW

Creep of the Week #1: Colorado Corrections officer conducting a ‘sting’: https://wp.me/p3Qxf-kMu

Creep of the Week #2: Utah man wanted to impregnate 12-year-old he met on Omegle: https://wp.me/p3Qxf-kNN

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The Verge on The Craigslist of Guns: https://bit.ly/2RQ6iDr

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Kraig David Van Winkle

34-year-old Kraig David Van Winkle is accused of allegedly kidnapping a 13-year-old girl from Springdale, Arkansas. Van Winkle is said to have taken the girl back to his home in Schertz, Texas. According to Google Maps, that’s at least a 20 hour round trip drive.

Van Winkle reportedly met the girl on the video chat site Omegle. Again, for  the uninitiated, Omegle is a website whose tagline is “Talk to strangers!” Omegle lets people engage in video chats with random people. There are no real age checks on Omegle.

Van Winkle’s conversation with the girl moved from Omegle to Snapchat. He told the girl during their chats that he could ‘take care of her’ at his home in Texas. The FBI was able to arrest Van Winkle at his home and rescue the girl. Van Winkle has been charged with one count of interstate kidnapping of a minor and one count of transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. You can’t cross those state lines, dude. That’s when the feds get involved.  He’s looking at a potential life sentence on federal kidnapping charges.

Once again, I can’t stress this enough, Omegle is not an app. There’s no icon to look for on any of your kid’s devices. It’s a website that you have to check the device’s browser history to see if it’s being accessed. Any device with a web browser, and an internet connection and a camera can access the video chats on Omegle. And if you let your kids use one of these devices without supervision, you’re just opening a window to your kids’ room for predators.

26-year-old Manuel Oppenheimer is accused of traveling from his home in Brooklyn, New York to the Charlotte, North Carolina area to allegedly try to have sex (child rape) with a 14-year-old girl. Oppenheimer is said to have met the girl on the video chat site Omegle. He then continued to communicate with the girl on Snapchat.

For those of you who may not know, Omegle is a video chat website that connects random people. Their motto literally is “Talk to strangers!” There is no real age verification on Omegle. Whenever I post a story about Omegle, I feel the need to point out that Omegle is not an app. It’s a website that any internet-enabled device can access. So if you’re looking for an Omegle app on your kid’s device, you’re not going to find one. Instead, you need to check the browser history to see if your kid has visited Omegle. That is they don’t know how to erase their browser history. But I digress.

While I couldn’t find Oppenheimer’s preferred method of travel, let’s assume he drove. Creeps like this always seem to make the drive or take a bus. Anyway,  that trip takes around 13 hours and over 600+ miles.

Oppenheimer reportedly pressed the girl to meet in April because he was worried he wouldn’t be able to in May because of prospective stay at home measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

So not only was this guy willing to make the long trip from NY to NC he was also willing to risk getting coronavirus in one of the seven states he traveled through. All to meet a 14-year-old girl that he could potentially rape. Since Oppenheimer crossed state lines, he’s being held in federal custody on a charge of traveling across state lines for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity with a minor.

Please keep in mind that any device with a web browser, an internet connection, and a camera can access the video chats on Omegle. If you let your kids use one of these devices without supervision, it’s like leaving an open window into your kid’s room for predators to leap in.

39-year-old Andrew Cunningham, formerly of Windsor, Connecticut, was recently sentenced to 18-years in prison for trying to lure a 13-year-old Tennessee girl to Connecticut. Cunningham met the girl through the random chat site Omegle. In case you’re unfamiliar with Omegle, it’s a website, not an app, that pairs strangers into a chat room. The chat can have video or just be a text chat.

At first, Cunningham told his victim that he was 17 then told her that he was 25. It must not have been a  video chat since there’s no way that this guy…

…could ever pass for 25 let alone 17. Not with that hairline anyway.

Not only did Cunningham try to get the girl to send explicit pictures of herself but also tried to get her to come to Connecticut by bus. It’s always by bus with these creeps. They’re either cheap or they think that somehow bus lines and stations are magically invisible to police.

Before being arrested for this incident in 2017, Cunningham was on the sex offender registry after being convicted of aggravated sexual abuse in 2015 for traveling to Illinois to have sex (child rape) with an underage girl. Just another reason to keep these predators behind bars for longer.

Omegle is not a site recommended for children but Omegle has no real age check to speak of and anybody can use it as long as they have an internet connected device. And since it’s not an app you would need to check your children’s browser history to see if they visited it. If your kids have a laptop with a webcam I would not recommend letting them use it unsupervised. Otherwise, it’s just like having a window into their room for strangers.

(Sources)
CT Post
Hartford Courant

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In this week’s episode Trench talks about  Snapchat trafficking, Oliver North, and why it’s ok to name killers in the media.

Snopes on Snapchat trafficking is at https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sex-trafficking-girls-snapchat/

The Bark app is at https://www.bark.us/

Trench on Oliver North https://realcrime.net/tag/oliver-north/

Music: Killers by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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I know I recently said that I wouldn’t be doing that many stories about social media anymore.  I mean Kik is on its way out and you can find stories about Snapchat on my Twitter feed.  However, there is one platform that will almost always get my attention and that’s Omegle.

For those of you who may not be familiar with Omegle, it is a website (not an app) where people can engage in video chats with random people. Omegle’s own slogan is “Talk To Strangers!” Because of its semi-anonymous nature, Omegle is another tool of choice among predators and child porn collectors. I also get more traffic on this website from people looking for information about Omegle than probably any other platform. A lot of those searches are ‘Will I get arrested from Omegle?’ but I digress.

Omegle’s age check is simply a button asking if you’re 18 because no underage kid ever lies on the internet. Their own Terms of Service even state you can be 13 to use their service.

That brings us to 25-year-old Adam Junghans of La Crosse, Wisconsin. He was arrested for allegedly being in possession of over 2,000 images of child porn. He reportedly claimed that he received many of the images from Omegle. Whether or not he meant he recorded kids he met on Omegle or received them from other child porn collectors is unclear. That’s right, Omegle is also used by child porn collectors to trade with each other which Junghans has also allegedly admitted to.

As I mentioned, Omegle is a website and not an app. It can be accessed on just about any internet-enabled device. It used to be that only home computers and laptops with webcams could enable Omegle’s video chat but recently Omegle began testing video chat for mobile as well.

So again, if you’re not monitoring our kids’ devices for websites like Omegle you’re leaving an open window to your kids’ lives that predators could use.

33-year-old Juan Carlos Ramon of Portland, Oregon pretended to be a girl on Musical.ly so he could communicate with two girls who were ages 6 and 8. Not a typo. Six and eight. I’m so disgusted by this story I’m just going to copy and paste the next bit…

According to court documents, Ramon encouraged the kids to play a “Simon Says”-type game, where he would send sexually explicit photos of a minor female and ask them to take and send him photos imitating the positions and acts depicted.

Again, I repeat, his victims were 6 and 8-years-old.

Ramon pleaded guilty back in May to child porn and child exploitation charges. Last month, he was sentenced to 15 years behind bars.

On top of that, Ramon admitted to soliciting underage girls for explicit photos for years on every creeper’s favorite video chat site, Omegle. The Musical.ly app that Ramon used has since been merged with TikTok.

Children with single-digit ages have no business being son social media. If your kids are this young and getting on apps like this then you’ve been outsmarted by a grade-schooler. No child has any business being on most social networks and apps, especially if they’re unattended. If they have any kind of internet-enabled device with a camera, then they’re prime targets for predators like this.

I realize I’m constantly repeating myself with these warnings and I may be a one-trick pony, but obviously, there are people out there who still haven’t gotten the message.

(Sources)
Fox 12 Oregon
KXL

If you’ve never heard of Omegle before, it’s a website, not an app, that allows strangers to chat with each other. It can be a webcam chat or not depending on the user’s preference. Omegle claims the video chats are monitored but I question how close they’re monitoring the chats since stories like this continue to crop up. There is no age verification on Omegle and while their terms of service state you must be 13 to use the site, anyone with an internet-enabled device that has a camera can use it. In Omegle’s defense, they have reported instances of abuse in the past to the NCMEC.

One of Omegle’s off-brand uses by predators is to exchange child porn with each other. That is what supposedly led to the arrest of 29-year-old Andre Esparra of Sarasota, Florida. Local police received a tip from the NCMEC. They say they received a tip from an email provider that an account with the user name ‘boyoloveschurch1’ was using the account to allegedly store child porn. This led police to Esparra who is said to have told police that he went on Omegle to chat with women but received the child porn images and was saving them for ‘later use’. Ew.

If you want to make sure that you’re kids are not using Omegle, you have to check their browser history and not which apps they’re using. And just in general, I recommend making sure that your kids do not have an internet-enabled device in their bedroom after bedtime. These can include, phones, tablets, and laptops.

(Sources)
WWSB
Bradenton Herald

I mean the headline says it all. 20-year-old Tyler Austin Erickson of Salt Lake City has been charged with attempted rape of a child, aggravated sexual abuse of a child, lewdness involving a child, and enticing a minor. Erickson allegedly met a 12-year-old girl on the website Omegle.

Again, for  the uninitiated, Omegle is a website whose tagline is “Talk to strangers!” Omegle lets people engage in video chats with random people. There are no real age checks on Omegle. They say that they monitor the chats that take place but I have to wonder how well monitored they are if a 20-year-old man is grooming a 12-year-old girl, but I digress. And again, I can’t stress this enough, but Omegle is not an app. There’s no icon to look for on any of your kid’s devices. It’s a website that you have to check the device’s browser history to see if it’s being accessed. Any device with a web browser, and an internet connection and a camera can access the video chats on Omegle.

Getting back to Erickson, he was caught with the girl at the girl’s grandmother’s house. During the investigation, police found messages between the two where they were talking about having a baby together. Prepare your mind bleach.

“Tyler and the juvenile victim had made previous arrangements to meet for sexual encounters if their first encounter was not successful in completing the goal of making the juvenile pregnant.”

Ick.

Anyway, any unmonitored internet device is just an open doorway between predators and your kids.

This week Trench talks more about guns in schools, Creep of the Week, and Armslist.

You’re not alone. Confidential help is available for free.  National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.  Call 1-800-273-8255. Available 24 hours everyday.

The Verge on The Craigslist of Guns: https://bit.ly/2RQ6iDr

My posts about Armslist: https://realcrime.net/tag/armslist/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/trenchreynolds

Music: Killers by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
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34-year-old Kraig David Van Winkle is accused of allegedly kidnapping a 13-year-old girl from Springdale, Arkansas. Van Winkle is said to have taken the girl back to his home in Schertz, Texas. According to Google Maps, that’s at least a 20 hour round trip drive.

Van Winkle reportedly met the girl on the video chat site Omegle. Again, for  the uninitiated, Omegle is a website whose tagline is “Talk to strangers!” Omegle lets people engage in video chats with random people. There are no real age checks on Omegle.

Van Winkle’s conversation with the girl moved from Omegle to Snapchat. He told the girl during their chats that he could ‘take care of her’ at his home in Texas. The FBI was able to arrest Van Winkle at his home and rescue the girl. Van Winkle has been charged with one count of interstate kidnapping of a minor and one count of transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. You can’t cross those state lines, dude. That’s when the feds get involved.  He’s looking at a potential life sentence on federal kidnapping charges.

Once again, I can’t stress this enough, Omegle is not an app. There’s no icon to look for on any of your kid’s devices. It’s a website that you have to check the device’s browser history to see if it’s being accessed. Any device with a web browser, and an internet connection and a camera can access the video chats on Omegle. And if you let your kids use one of these devices without supervision, you’re just opening a window to your kids’ room for predators.

26-year-old Manuel Oppenheimer is accused of traveling from his home in Brooklyn, New York to the Charlotte, North Carolina area to allegedly try to have sex (child rape) with a 14-year-old girl. Oppenheimer is said to have met the girl on the video chat site Omegle. He then continued to communicate with the girl on Snapchat.

For those of you who may not know, Omegle is a video chat website that connects random people. Their motto literally is “Talk to strangers!” There is no real age verification on Omegle. Whenever I post a story about Omegle, I feel the need to point out that Omegle is not an app. It’s a website that any internet-enabled device can access. So if you’re looking for an Omegle app on your kid’s device, you’re not going to find one. Instead, you need to check the browser history to see if your kid has visited Omegle. That is they don’t know how to erase their browser history. But I digress.

While I couldn’t find Oppenheimer’s preferred method of travel, let’s assume he drove. Creeps like this always seem to make the drive or take a bus. Anyway,  that trip takes around 13 hours and over 600+ miles.

Oppenheimer reportedly pressed the girl to meet in April because he was worried he wouldn’t be able to in May because of prospective stay at home measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

So not only was this guy willing to make the long trip from NY to NC he was also willing to risk getting coronavirus in one of the seven states he traveled through. All to meet a 14-year-old girl that he could potentially rape. Since Oppenheimer crossed state lines, he’s being held in federal custody on a charge of traveling across state lines for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity with a minor.

Please keep in mind that any device with a web browser, an internet connection, and a camera can access the video chats on Omegle. If you let your kids use one of these devices without supervision, it’s like leaving an open window into your kid’s room for predators to leap in.

The other day I found a news article from a newspaper in the UK. It states that a UK police department has warned its residents about a new app called Omegle. I’ll give then an E for effort since more parents should know about Omegle, however, I feel like they’ve done themselves a disservice by referring to Omegle as an app.

For the uninitiated, Omegle is a website whose tagline is “Talk to strangers!” Omegle lets people engage in video chats with random people. There are no age checks on Omegle that are actually effective.

Omegle is not an app. There is nothing that needs to be installed on any internet-enabled device to use Omegle. There are no app icons to look for on your kid’s device. Omegle is used strictly in the device’s web browser. Instead, you would need to look in the web browser’s history to see if any of your kids are using Omegle. Omegle itself even says on the top of its website that…

You don’t need an app to use Omegle on your phone or tablet!

Omegle is hardly new either as it first went live in 2009.

Omegle is often used by online predators to groom children and exchange child porn. While Omegle says that the chats are monitored, that hasn’t stopped predators and child porn traders from using their website.

28-year-old George Karagiannis of Honesdale, Pennsylvania has been charged in the rape of two girls ages 12 and 13. Karagiannis allegedly posed as an 18-year-old named ‘John M’ on the webcam chat site Omegle.

Once again for those in the back row. Omegle is a website whose tagline is “Talk to strangers!” as you can see by the above graphic. Omegle lets people engage in video chats with random people. There are no age checks on Omegle that are actually effective.

Omegle is not an app. There is nothing that needs to be installed on any internet-enabled device to use Omegle. There are no app icons to look for on your kid’s device. Omegle is used strictly in the device’s web browser.

After meeting his victims on Omegle, Karagiannis arranged a meeting with them at a local park. He is said to have raped both victims in his truck. If it’s not a park, it’s a fast-food joint where these creeps meet their victims at.

Omegle is often used by online predators to groom children. Omegle says that its chats are monitored, but that hasn’t stopped predators from using their website.

No child under the age of 18 should ever be on Omegle for any reason. If you want to know if your kids are using Omegle you need to check their web browser history on all their devices. Or you can think about how may devices with cameras your kids have that could just be windows for predators.

I originally posted about 60-year-old John DiGeronimo back in March. His is a twisted tale of predatory behavior at a level that I’ve rarely read about.

As a quick summary, DiGeronimo met an underage girl online. The girl was from a South Carolina suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina. DiGeronimo would allegedly make 400+ mile trips from his home in Alexandria, Virginia to ‘have sex’ with the victim. The victim was 14 when this ‘relationship’ began. Again, I use the sarcasm quotes because it’s essentially child rape.

The victim is said to have ended the relationship back in January which allegedly prompted DiGeronimo to make at least one more trip to the victim’s home where he is said to have stolen back gifts that he gave to the victim. When police in Alexandria searched DiGeronimo’s apartment, they reportedly found ziplock baggies with hair labeled in the name of the victim. Let that settle in for a while.

Anyway, when I first posted about DiGeronimo, it was reported that he met his victim on Snapchat. Now, WBTV out of Charlotte is reporting that DiGeronimo may have met his victim on everyone’s favorite random cam chat site, Omegle. You know the one, “Talk to Strangers” and all that. WBTV, calls Omegle an app but we know better don’t we?

This past Wednesday, a South Carolina circuit judge ruled that DiGeronimo be held without bail. He is looking at a possible life sentence after being charged with 132 counts of various crimes against his victim including criminal sexual conduct, stalking, and sexual exploitation of a minor.

35-year-old Brian Grinnell of Lakewood, Ohio was recently arrested for allegedly sharing an explicit image of an underage girl from Connecticut on TikTok. However, TikTok isn’t the real story here.

Now, I don’t blame news outlets for using TikTok in the headlines considering how popular it is. I mean, I sort of did it myself with this headline. The problem is with reporting like that it gives the impression that TikTok is the bad guy here. A lot of people will see the headline and say ‘that TikTok is bad’ while missing the crux of the matter.

Getting back to Grinnell, he’s accused of allegedly posing as a 15-year-old girl online and convincing a girl under 12 to send explicit pictures of herself. The victim became uncomfortable and blocked Grinnell on social media.

Out of revenge, this 35-year-old ‘man’, messaged a friend of the victim on TikTok and said that if the victim didn’t respond to him he’d post the pictures on TikTok, which he did.

Here’s the thing though. Grinnell didn’t meet his victim on TikTok. According to reports, Grinnell met his victim on everyone’s favorite website to meet strangers Omegle.

Omegle is a website whose tagline is “Talk to strangers!”. Omegle lets people engage in video chats with random people. There are no age checks on Omegle that are actually effective. Omegle is not an app. There is nothing that needs to be installed on any internet-enabled device to use Omegle. There are no app icons to look for on your kid’s device. Omegle is used strictly in the device’s web browser. Of course, none of this stops minors from using Omegle and predators know this. But wait, there’s more.

After meeting his victim on Omegle, Grinnell is said to have moved communications with his victim to Snapchat which is where the photos were said to have been exchanged. Let’s not lose sight that the victim in this case was under 12-years-old.

No one at that age needs to be on social media platforms like TikTok and Snapchat let alone a predator playground like Omegle.

If you don’t teach your children about the dangers of the internet they might find out the hard way.

(Sources)

• New Canaan Police: Ohio man posted video of naked girl on TikTok
• Feds: 35-Year-Old Man Indicted for Distribution of Child Pornography

29-year-old William Oneal Lindsey of Brownsville, Kentucky was recently arrested on charges related to child solicitation and child porn. Lindsey was allegedly on our favorite anonymous video chat site Omegle where he is said to have approached a 15-year-old girl. The girl was actually a detective working with the U.S. Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force.

Lindsey reportedly moved the conversation to the favored messaging app of sex offenders, pedophiles, child porn collectors, and child traffickers, Kik. The conversation turned sexual once it moved to Kik. I bet he called the ‘girl’ kitten or some other neckbeard term of affection, but I digress. Of course, Lindsey is also said to have requested explicit images of the girl. He was arrested after investigators were able to trace his IP address.

Now, you’d be surprised how many people that are caught like this will cry entrapment. They’ll say they never would have done anything like this if it weren’t for investigators leading them on. However, in most of these cases, the suspect had approached the investigator sexually first. Also, in Lindsey’s case, he is said to have admitted to police that he has spoken to underage girls in the past and even allegedly had child porn on his phone.

To make matters worse, Lindsey is a high school teacher, although it’s unknown if any students were his victim.

While in this case the girl was really a detective I’d still like to remind my readers one thing about Omegle. It is not an app, it’s a website. So if you’re looking for an Omegle app on your kids’ phones you won’t find one. Omegle can be accessed on any internet enabled device through the web browser. So, if you want to look for evidence of Omegle on any of your kids’ devices, you’ll need to check their browser history.

Finally, we have a news article about video chat site Omegle that doesn’t call Omegle an app.

But before we get started, as always I like to instruct any newcomers on what Omegle is. It is a website that allows video chat between two random people. Omegle’s own motto is “Talk to strangers.” Omegle’s video chat can be accessed on any internet enabled device that has a camera and a web browser. That means it can be accessed on smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Omegle has no real age check and can be accessed by anyone of any age. It’s also a haven for predators and child porn collectors.

Now, back to the article in question.

According to WSVN in Miami, a Florida father found his 9-year-old daughter video chatting with some guy on Omegle. When he asked his daughter where she found out about Omegle she reportedly told him she found it through TikTok. WSVN reports that eight billion (with a b) videos on TikTok have the Omegle hashtag attached to it. No 9-year-old girl needs to be on social media unmonitored, even TikTok. While TikTok may seem innocent enough, there is a darker side to TikTok as well.

The article also had this quote…

One blog describes it as the “Wild West” of online communication.

I’d like to think that was this blog, but I digress.

This father is lucky that he caught his daughter before something serious happened. Too many parents of young children have found out about Omegle after a predator has taken advantage of their child.

As usual, I have to emphasize that Omegle is not an app as some media outlets have reported. There is no Omegle icon to look for. It is entirely used through the device’s web browser like Chrome or Edge. If you want to find out if your kids have been on Omegle, you need to check the browser’s history.

While it’s not a perfect solution, I also recommend instituting a no devices in the bedroom rule after bedtime for young children and even teens if it is warranted.

If you know a parent who may not be up on things like Omegle, please share this post with them.

Here we have another story about parents finding their kids using the cam chat website Omegle.

Once again, if you’re not familiar with Omegle, it is a website that allows video chat between two random people. Omegle’s own motto is “Talk to strangers.” Omegle’s video chat can be accessed on any internet enabled device that has a camera and a web browser. That means it can be accessed on smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Omegle has no real age check and can be accessed by anyone of any age. It’s also a haven for predators and child porn collectors.

Recently, two Florida mothers are said to have found their 13-year-old sons using Omegle. While you might think they’re a couple of Karens for going to the media, I disagree since more people need to know about this website that has continued to go under the media’s radar. However, I think the moms are being a little naive about their sons’ actions.

The moms say that their sons were told by another teen that they could go on to Omegle to meet other teens their age. While it’s true that users can be as young as 13 according to Omegle’s terms of service, the majority of Omegle users are going there for more base reasons than meeting a new friend. This is akin to someone of my generation telling our parents that we didn’t know there was nudity on Cinemax after being caught watching it. Much like we were back in the day, these kids were probably curious to see what was so taboo about the platform. However, I bet they were met with more images of nude dudes than their teenage brains could handle.

Whatever you think you know about the internet, your kids probably know more. I’m almost positive that these kids knew exactly what they were getting into and came up with a story when they got caught. But that’s neither here nor there. They’re actually lucky that they were found out about their parents, or we could be reading a much different headline about them.