“It’s only for business though,” said his girlfriend Max.
Omar Aly, also known by his online moniker Riotlol, is a 20 year old streamer who soared in terms of popularity on the new streaming platform Kick. Supposedly an exit from the limiting confines of the established platform Twitch, Kick was founded by three Youtubers who sought to find a new space to encourage true “freedom of speech,” and uninhibited streaming.
Much of Omar’s online streams consisted of himself on OmeTV- an Online video chat “roulette” that connects strangers to video chat with each other at random in the blink of an eye. Strangers could either choose to stay and talk to each other, or skip to the next stranger.
Live streaming daily for up to five hours or more at a time, Omar gained his popularity by having a very particular and obvious slant to his streams. He aimed to talk to only girls, as this was the main attraction driving viewers to watch him.
With him being an adult man, this emphasis on interacting with girls may not seem so sinister at a glance. The truth is that many of the girls were minors, and the nature of his streams were a far cry from innocent, wholesome fun.
Omar’s audience would egg him on as he sat in his room, making juvenile jokes, acting boisterous and ostentatious. He would record these interactions with mostly underaged girls, some as young as 15. With the exception of one or two, these girls never knew they were being filmed, and Omar would coax them into not only lying about their ages, but into showing him their naked bodies. He did this countless times, knowing whenever the girls were minors, making jokes about it, and oftentimes forcing them to lie about their ages.
He would say, “Your mic is lagging,” whenever it was clearly stated that they were under 18, snorting and laughing to himself and his audience out of frame. He would then make them repeat themselves, until they eventually lied and said 18. This ‘subtle’ coercion would be not so subtle, when he would blatantly correct them and tell them they were of legal age when they clearly said they weren’t. In one instance, a woman had been speaking to him after she expressed concerns of being drugged that same night, and he would proceed to still pressure her into exposing herself.
His audience encouraged this morally reprehensible behaviour, as did many of the moderators on the platform. He made his money this way, unreprimanded and celebrated for violating the personhood of several minors. In one instance, a minor had exposed herself to Omar, and after speaking with him later to discuss feelings of suicidal ideation since her family’s discovering, Omar and his other friend, ‘Citrus’ live streamed their conversation where they continuously downplayed and joked about her rapidly declining mental state.
Omar lives in Miami, where the age of consent is 18. Not only did he subject and coerce several minors into sexualizing their bodies for him, but he went on to do something even more repugnant. He had a discord server made for chatting with his fans and viewers. In this server, a sub menu had been created solely for distributing the nudes of girls and women that he had coerced into exposing themselves for him. These women, who initially often showed visible hesitation when he would ask repeatedly, were not only being pressured and worn down into these actions, but did so believing in good faith that they were only showing him their bodies, not an audience of 1000s of live viewers, and later on, more and more despicable people who wanted in on their nude pictures afterwards.
Omar would have gotten away scot-free if it weren’t for a few other YouTubers who documented and tried to put an end to his behaviour. What he was doing was alarming, disturbing and illegal, and he was brazenly encouraged and profiting off it. He had a callous attitude that his fans perpetuated, and the founders of the platform in which this took place turned a complete blind eye to it.
Until more attention, criticism and scrutiny was placed onto them, that is. This resulted in the long-awaited banning of Omar, but the damage had already been done. For many victims, most of whom were unaware that their interactions were being filmed and that their nudes were being allocated on the internet invariably, the damage was, in many ways, irreversible.
There is a growing market of revenge porn and the distribution of child pornography, and it is existing in plain sight, on the most popular platforms on the Internet. After constant promises to do better, these platforms remain the same, and plunge deeper into the depths of depravity with every passing second. It is important to note that some of Omar’s stream viewers were young boys themselves, who saw no harm or wrongdoing in his behaviour, and who were equally or more abhorrent than him. Himself and his audience often engaged in a silent rating of the girls he talked to, commenting on whether or not they looked “rapeable.”
What’s worse, Omar had mods of the site who frequented his live streams, and encouraged his behaviour as well. The overall culture of the platform, which purported “free speech” seems to be only a veneer for encouraging vile and inhumane behaviour with little to no repercussions. The people who run these platforms only attempt to temporarily rectify the situation when they get caught, or when there is a sweeping outcry for change.
It has always been obvious that profit is the ultimate end goal for large conglomerates and tech giants, but when clicks and views of any sort translate into immediate money with little to no censorship, the waters get heavily muddied. Long gone are the days of clickbait, or silly and even dangerous pranks that lead to human interest and thousands of clicks. Today, people want something that is flagrantly obscene, hateful and virulent. Hate and permanent damage have become entertainment without a second thought. The most depraved people; pedophiles and rapists, who exist in plain sight among us can find respite in consuming illegal “content” without any repercussions whatsoever.
Even though Omar has been banned, these consequences seldom translate into real life punishment. In the eyes of the law, internet crime exists mostly on the internet, even when there is staggering evidence. Wherever he may be, Omar might still be able to get away with the damage lying in his wake around anyone who knows nothing of his online presence.