Pornographic images, pedophile crimes, live murders… Trashy social networks like Omegle, Bigo and Coco are attracting more and more young people. Dangerous platforms that escape all surveillance…
Teenagers love social networks, whether to keep in touch with their friends, share their passions, follow their idols or simply have fun. But if parents generally know Facebook, TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat, some networks escape their vigilance as well as that of the authorities. This is notably the case of Omegle, Coco.gg and Bigo Live. And this lack of supervision and supervision opens the door to many dangers to which minors are exposed – already that “known” social networks lead to many excesses… These platforms put strangers in contact so that they can exchange between them. While this is a great way for teenagers to seek companionship, it’s also a real hunting ground for sex offenders and pedophiles. Pornographic images, bad encounters, live crimes: danger can arise in a few clicks. And, like pornographic sites – which 2 million children watch every month in France – platforms like Omegle or Coco.gg simply display an age control window “I’m 18 or more” which you just have to click to enter. The Parisian has collected many testimonies from teenagers who found themselves, despite themselves, exposed to adult content, problematic exchanges, and even homicides. No wonder these platforms regularly get in trouble with the law!
Omegle, Bigo, Coco: discussions with complete strangers
For those who don’t know, Omegle is an online visual or text chat that connects two people in the world randomly. They use the webcam to see each other, and the microphone or chat to communicate. The goal is to bring together new people from all over the world. The problem is that any minor can start a chat with another user. No age check is performed by the platform, except for a checkbox that certifies that he is over 18 years old. And again, a short time ago, the box only certified that he was over 13 or that he had his parents’ authorization. In short, nothing that lets you imagine what you can actually find there. Omegle’s popularity literally exploded with successive lockdowns. In addition, famous Youtubers, like Squeezie, go there for their videos and invite their community to go there to participate. Therefore, teenagers connect to it with the aim of running into their idols and being able to talk to them, a bit like a kind of wheel of fortune.
In the same genre, there is Coco.gg, which is regularly at the heart of legal cases and news items. This is an anonymous chat between two people where, again, no identity verification is performed. You can chat with other users either in public rooms, or in “private rooms”, or by private message. The platform presents itself as a social network allowing to make and multiply meetings, to develop a network of acquaintances, and even to find friends. Again, it is possible to activate your webcam to send photos or chat live, always in public or in private. It is also possible to share other files, such as videos or music, and to chat via your microphone in voice rooms. As for Bigo Live, it is a live streaming social network that allows you to share live videos and create communities of fans, with an AI that encourages interactions. Do you feel the problem coming?
Omegle, Bigo, Coco: freewheeling platforms
All these platforms have in common to connect complete strangers without any age control, if not this simple button to certify that one is an adult. However, we know very well that these warnings are not heeded. According to’Digital Generation survey “the digital practices of young people aged 11 to 18” published by the CNIL in March 2021, 44% of 11-18 year olds have lied about their age on social media. In addition, these platforms are not moderated – or very weakly – while they generate millions of passages every day.
On Omegle, the control of video content is not carried out by moderators, but by simple image recognition software. This is supposed to be able to identify violent and sexual content in order to ban the user who broadcasts it on the platform. In fact, it is far from enough, as evidenced by the many scandals about the presence of pornography and pedocrime. Among the testimonies in Le Parisien, a young woman, who was 15 at the material time, explains that she was unwittingly confronted with pornographic images on Omegle, while browsing the platform with one of her friends. “She hadn’t warned me of the content. To be confronted with so many penises so young is shocking”she says. “It traumatized me a bit.” Her parents were absolutely unaware that she frequented this platform. A magazine survey Kool Mag had made a lot of noise at the end of 2022. Journalists tested the platform for an entire Wednesday afternoon. They met many young people there – sometimes 9 years old! –, but they also came across “dozens of men masturbating, showing off, some disguised as women wearing women’s underwear”. Even if young users can change interlocutor in one click – it’s the very principle of the platform – it’s too late, the image is already imprinted in the brain…
Coco.gg, also known as Cocoland, is at the heart of many court cases, sometimes involving underage prostitution. For example, in 2019, West France reported that a resident of Brest had managed to upload 3,000 images and 160 videos of children to the chat site between 2013 and 2016. To do this, he connected daily to the site, even staying there for 8 hours per day when he was not working. Likewise, The Parisian reported in 2019 that two men had been convicted of corruption of minors – it was actually a cyber patrol made up of gendarmes, who posed as a 13-year-old girl. For its part, Bigo Live sometimes broadcasts very violent content live. In 2021, influencer Keneff Leauva, son of actress Firmine Richard, stabbed another internet user to death and broadcast the homicide live, in front of 500 spectators. Videos that have been released on the platform can also be found on major porn sites, such as Pornhub, where they are now hosted.
Trash networks: the need to regulate platforms
Faced with these dangers and the helplessness of parents, it is more than ever necessary to regulate these platforms. Yet, according to thearticle 227-24 of the Penal Codeamended in December 2021, these are reprehensible “if a minor’s access [au contenu pornographique] results from a simple declaration by the latter indicating that he is at least eighteen years old. At the beginning of March, the National Assembly unanimously adopted a bill aimed at establishing a digital majority at 15 and strengthening entry filters on platforms and social networks (see our article). To enforce this age limit, the bill must make it possible to establish the obligation for social networks “to set up a technical solution for verifying the age of end users and the consent of holders of parental authority” for children under 15. The solutions envisaged could well be the same as those that will be put in place to enforce the age limit for access to pornographic sites, which the Government is in the process of putting in place (see our article). It remains to be seen if the platforms will play the game…
It is extremely important to carry out prevention, with young people and parents alike. To do this, the Government has set up a new platform, jeprotegemonenfant.gouv.fr, to help parents support their children in the use of screens and digital technology. It is essential to establish a preventive framework and dialogue around the potential dangers of the Internet, both in terms of behavior (cyberharassment, revenge porn, cyberattacks, addiction to screens, pedophilia, etc.) and content consumed by the most young people (fake news, pornography, violence, dangerous challenges to reproduce, sensitive content, etc.).