this is bbc news. the headlines: president putin has been addressing crowds filling moscow's main stadium for a patriotic gala concert to mark one year of russia's invasion. surrounded on stage by servicemen from all the armed forces, he spoke of russian warriors heroically fighting "this very moment" on the borders of historically—russian lands. top—level russian—chinese talks in moscow have ended with both sides sending positive signals ahead of friday's anticipated speech by president xi jinping on the ukraine war. moscow thanked beijing for a "consistently balanced position", welcoming its readiness to play what it called a positive role in a settlement. the united states says it's extremely concerned by violence

in israel and the occupied west bank. a raid by israeli troops in nablus on wednesday left 11 palestinians dead and about 100 wounded. now on bbc news, the travel show — —— now on bbc news, omegle: matched with my abuser. a warning — this programme contains descriptions of sexual violence and disturbing scenes. we tell children, "don't talk to strangers," because we, as a humanity, know that adults and children are at different levels. when alice logged onto omegle at the age of 11, she had no idea that she would be matched with a paedophile. he had ill intentions, evil intentions. i was consistently being forced to do things that a child should not have to do. omegle is a hunting ground

for predators. any time that - i've been on omegle, a very high percentage of it is for a sexual purpose. - there is, 100%, definitely a dark side to omegle. omegle is quoted in dozens of cases against predators the world over. but now, alice is fighting back. this will be the first case that is against a social media company. we're holding them liable for their own product operations. no comment, but feel free to email us questions. - for years, the site's elusive owner has ignored calls for change. can we finally track him down? mr brooks, we just want to ask you some questions. it's about your website, mr brooks. it's about omegle.

i was reallyjust like any other child. i was always an a—student. everything on my marks from teachers was always about how i was so sociable and a pleasure to have in class. i think i lived a relatively normal, happy childhood. how did you first learn about this website? i learned through friends. people went on it as, sort of, a game of sorts. what, like, in a group situation? social setting, yes. like, slumber parties, that kind of thing? yes, a social setting, slumber parties—type thing. and then, discovered it more on my own as i kind of got older. a lot of people knew about it, but nobody knew the harm that it was doing. omegle is a free website, and it basically lets you match

with anyone across the world, completely across the world. they could be from the us, they could be from canada, they could be from mexico. 19—year—old fabio makes popular videos about omegle. he's got more than 500,000 followers across social media platforms, with fans tuning in to watch his edgy pranks and sometimes controversial chats on the site. you can have a conversation with them and, if at any point you no longer want to continue the conversation, all you have to do is press one button, and that's it, they're gone. the site has been a notorious place for random encounters for mostly teenagers for over a decade. during the pandemic, it exploded in popularity, with videos about it going viral on tiktok and youtube. it's remained popular since and, in fact, has grown to around 73 million visits a month, according to analysts at semrush. around 15 million people from india are logging on a month, 13 million in the us,

and millions of others are visiting from mexico, the uk and australia. so, what are some of the ages of people that you've met? sometimes you'll just be going through, and you'll literally see a child on there, literally like a seven, eight years old child, just sitting there trying to talk to you, and it's very weird. and sometimes you'll meet someone who's about 60, 70, even 80 years old, just a bunch of old people who want to go on there. 0megle is free, and was launched in 2009 by 18—year—old leif brooks. it started off as just text, then introduced video in 2011. it makes money through advertising, mostly for porn websites. there is, 100%, definitely a dark side to omegle. it does get very weird, especially late at night. things i've personally seen is, you know. _ it'sjust men pleasuring themselves, playing with themselves on there. theyjust do it where they know that there's young girls on there, young boys on there, and they do it to show them people, and i guess, like, they like that or something. the site is moderated, but i don't really know what's going on half the time, to be honest. like, it's...it gets crazy.

the dark side to 0megle is well documented. i carried out an investigation into the site in 2021, and twice witnessed pre—pubescent boys engaging in sexual behaviour — incidents that we didn't record, and reported to police. the story led to calls from the united nations for changes to the website. two years earlier, a paedophile from rural canada called ryan fordyce was convicted after police discovered he'd been using 0megle to find victims. i'm constable pam klassen. i'm a 19—year member- of the brandon police service. were located — in brandon, manitoba, canada. so, i've been working for — for the past ten years, - i've been the _ digital forensics examiner. i located an ip address out of brandon - that was sharing these - child sexual abuse materials, and then i was able - to get a search warrant so that— i could search his home. so, we went to his house and, at the time, -

only his wife was home. we explained why we were there, and i was able to get onto the computer, i and i was able to locate the child sexual abuse materials. _ we knew that he was i coming home for lunch, and when he came home, i had found the materialsl at that point, and i advised i him that he was under arrest for accessing and distributing child pornography. _ he was surprised. his wife was surprised, as welt _ he had two kids, teenagers. fordyce had seven folders on his computer, all with a different girl's name. one of them was called "alice". it contained 220 images and videos of her when she was between 11 and 1a. i spent a huge chunk of my childhood in this, being forced to do things that a child should not have to do. every day, being at the will of someone else who had the worst of intentions with children. so, with alice, i had no idea where in the world she was. j she could've been anywhere —| she could've been in australia, she could've been in the uk, | she could've been in canada.

and i found pictures of her in front of a certain landmark in the united states. - and i also found - another picture of her where she was wearing an outfit from school. that had the initials of the school- and a logo on the shirt. and i was able to reach out - to the law enforcement agency there, and they were able to find her. _ felt like the world froze... ..and everything stopped... ..and... ..my parents crumbling to the ground, like any parent would. ryan fordyce was sentenced to eight years in prison. it was discovered that he'd used 0megle to meet three of his victims, including alice. his playbook was similar in each case — get matched at random with a child, groom them, and convince them to hand over private details so that he could carry on talking to them on messaging apps. well, if you have a platform

that gives paedophiles practice, how can he not be an expert at what he's doing? each time, seeing what works and what doesn't. it's a practice field. ijust, unfortunately, i was on the latter end of it. there's a community of predators and paedophiles that thrive off of 0megle. they use it as a way to access children repetitively and consistently. often, i was sent back to, in a sense, recruit more... ..as if it was a cult. recruit more children? more children. so you were a child? you were 12, 13, or something? mm—hm. and he would say, "i want you to go back on..." and find more. "..and find more." i was consistently trying to fake information, fake the content to not put anyone else through what i was going through. what sort of things

was he saying to you, to try and persuade you that you had no choice? that this was all my fault. and i think, unfortunately, so many children have been in this position, will be in this position, as long as there's not active change. alice is suing 0megle in a landmark case against a social media company. she's hired a new york law firm that's known for going after tech giants. they specialise, according to the website, in cutting—edge litigation against big tech and powerful predators at work, home, school and online. i founded this firm to become the attorney that i needed when i was under attack by a scary, abusive ex who was threatening me online and offline. i couldn't find a lawyer who would take what happened to me seriously. hello.

hey! hi, how are you doing? carrie launched the 0megle lawsuit in 2021, but her team has been in close contact with alice for years. and most of our clients are people who've been the victim of some sort of sexual violence or gender— based abuse. our case is so much about alice and her abuser, but for every one fordyce, we can assume that there are hundreds and thousands of more of him. omegle is a hunting ground for predators. _ it invites children and adults to be matched randomly and privately, _ and anonymously for chatting. what would you say to people who think that it's up to parents to stop their children going on websites like this? i would say they're wrong. i would say that there's absolutely no way thatl

anybody can account for their child's use. of technology 24/7. more so, people - don't know about omegle, parents don't know what this is. - and it quite literallyj encourages them to "talk to strangers. " alice's suit, known as am versus 0megle, is likely to be one of, if not the first time a tech platform is put on trial for the way it's built. these so—called product liability lawsuits are a growing trend, and a potential new way for social networks to be held accountable for their alleged wrongdoings. in the last year, there have been over 100 cases filed against meta, snap, youtube, tiktok — and they're all product liability cases. alice's case has been really, really instrumental in arguing for these other platforms to be liable. it's, like, everyone's

waiting for this outcome... everyone's watching the alice case? yeah. in the united states, we have section 230 of the communications decency act, which makes it incredibly difficult to ever sue an online platform. it was originally intended to make it difficult to sue a platform for defamation, but it's been interpreted to make it difficult to sue them for anything — whether it's child sexual exploitation, revenge porn. but we, a few years ago, brought a case against a different platform, saying that, let's start treating these asjust basic products. let's look at them as, you know, if somebody gets injured, let's look at if there was a defect in the design or the coding that made this harm happen. you know, as soon as the platform realised that this is how it was being used, then it had the duty to innovate, you know, whether through age verification or some other means,

they needed to fix their product. but before the case can progress, a hurdle. alice and her legal team are preparing for another hearing as 0megle is claiming that it can't be sued in a product liability case as it's a service, not a product. in three days' time, carrie and her team need to convince a judge or the lawsuit is over. ..she said there's no platform... this and it's notjust legal circles watching the case closely. child protection agencies have repeatedly called for changes to be made to 0megle, but have been ignored. i'm tamsin mcnally, i'm the hotline manager at the internet watch foundation. so, the internet watch foundation's aim is to remove child sexual abuse material that is posted on publicly—accessible areas of the internet. the iwf says it's attempted

to speak to 0megle's owner, leif brooks, about changes he could make to the site to protect children. he's never responded. i can tell you that the analysts upstairs, they see content related to 0megle about 20 times a week on average. we see it being discussed a lot as a platform for offenders to use. one way offenders like to entice these children is kind of by playing a game — could be one point for waving at the camera or smiling, and then it gets more and more kind of severe. there will always be an image or a video you see that kind of makes you stop for a second and go, "i just can't believe this is happening". we found this 0megle sex game being shared online. its creator did not respond to our questions. with all these images and videos that you and your staff see here, how do you cope when you see something that really stops you in your tracks? there will always be an image or a video you see that kind of makes you stop for a second and go, "i just can't believe this is happening".

like, i saw a video a couple of days ago, and it was two boys in their bathroom together — and from what i can tell, it looked like they were brothers. and then, they were being asked to... ..do activities with each other. and it's just really, really sad to see. but worst of all is that the children have no idea. they've got no idea how many other offenders around the world are looking at those images of them, and how many times those images are being sold. 0megle has been cited as a tool for predators in dozens of charges and convictions of paedophiles. in the last two years alone, it's quoted in 50 cases we found. there are cases in spain, argentina, australia, france, four in the uk, more than 20 in the us — that's just in the last couple of years. and it's notjust 0megle that's mentioned on these charge sheets, of course,

there are other platforms like snapchat that frequently come up. but if you think about the size of snapchat, hundreds of millions of users a month — compared to that of 0megle, tens of millions of users a month — it does seem that this website is disproportionately problematic. is i've asked leif brooks for an interview multiple times in the past two years. he's never accepted. so, we travelled to florida to try to speak to him directly. the one question i really want to ask brooks — and i've been trying to ask this for over a year in an interview, and he hasn't done any — is why isn't he doing more to protect children on 0megle? it's as simple as that. i don't know what to make of leif brooks, because he doesn't speak. he doesn't speak publicly, he doesn't do any interviews. he's a very enigmatic kind of character, really. had this massive rise in the tech world, founded the website 0megle

when he was 18. i mean, he's clearly a very intelligent, technologically—thinking person. as well as 0megle, he co—founded another tech firm called 0ctane ai. but these images and his profile have now been deleted from the company website, and the firm says they no longer work with him. they didn't say why, but previously, they've been clear to distance themselves from any association with 0megle. it's this persistent problem it has with predators. that's what i want to talk to him about. and that's what i've been trying to organise an interview about ever since i started looking into it. and then, it's sadly come to this.

brooks was definitely in. all the blinds on his house were swiftly closed. one of his neighbours told us he rarely leaves the house and never talks to them. we decided to wait in the florida heat to see if he came out. nearly seven hours later, he emerged. mr brooks. can we ask you some questions, please? we're from the bbc. door slams mr brooks, wejust want to ask you some questions! it's about your website, mr brooks. it's about 0megle. we want to know why you're not protecting children, mr brooks.

can you come out and have a conversation, please? we tried. we've come all the way here, trying to have a civilised conversation with him. the blinds are all closed. erm...we've tried all we can. he doesn't want to talk. he never wants to talk. it's a shame. i've got lots of questions. mr brooks did reply to an email. he said people "are solely responsible" for their own behaviour while using his website, but that 0megle "takes the safety of users extremely seriously". he said the site is moderated by "ai tools and human moderators". he also says he works with law enforcement and organisations working to stop the online exploitation of children. in portland, the make—or—break hearing has arrived. many cases like this have been thrown out at this stage, but the team is confident.

hours later, 0megle's legal team walk out. they don't want to talk. no comment, but feel free to email us questions. - 0k, thank you very much. we're definitely moving forward on the product liability claims. one of the rare cases against a platform that is moving toward trial. so, the game shall be beginning. mr brooks wouldn't answer questions about the lawsuit, but there are no signs his team will accept that 0megle is liable for what happened. however, weeks after alice notified the company about the lawsuit, a small measure of protection a was added — a tick box, to confirm that users are over 18. do you think that stops children going on there?

erm, ifeel like it made it worse, low—key, just because... before, there was no nothing, so everyone just got on, but now, it's the fact that obviously, you have to be 18, so i'm guessing for the kids and for the young teenagers, they find it more enticing and more exciting. like, "0oh, i'm not actually supposed to be on here. "it's for people over 18." leif brooks won't say what prompted the change, but alice's team are pretty certain why he did it, after years of only minor changes to the text on the site. is this the alice effect? this is...i'm confident that this is the alice effect. we do see this as a partial victory. it feels like 0megle is owning up to some of... ..the responsibility that they ought to. but there's a lot more to be fought, and this... ..is not sufficient. i'm glad there's small changes, but they are purely superficial. they're there to save face,

not protect children. everyday things remind me of what i've been through. there's healing, but i can't gain those years back. and it presents itself in even the smallest of ways. in doing my hair — fordyce wanted me to look as young as possible, and having my hair in a ponytail to the left side was a favourite of his. and if my hair even gets pulled to that side in a ponytail accidentally, it can run shudders through my body. this platform has allowed abuse that carries through a lifetime. what would be the ideal scenario for you? what would you like to see, the end of this website completely? i don't think it carries enough benefits to destroy children's lives. so, i do not think there's a place for it. if one person is so severely hurt, let alone the thousands of other children that have gone through this, and will continue to go

through this, as long as the platform continues. hello there. wednesday brought our first appreciable rain for some time. in fact, or eastern england, more rain than we've seen all february so far.

but the other element was, of course, a cooler day. temperatures dipped from the 13 in harden on tuesday to just 8 on wednesday, which is about average for the time of year. and the change was due to a change in wind direction behind this rather raggedy looking weather front on our satellite picture, the north—westerly wind developed and that north—westerly wind is blowing our cloud away further south, although we've had a smattering of snow across the moors and the south—west. so, it is cold air. we could see something a little bit wintry on the hills as that continues southwards through the rest of the night. behind it, temperatures are dropping to freezing and of course, where we're seeing any wintriness. so with the surfaces damp, it could well be quite icy. so that's something we haven't seen for a while, either. so, a cold and frosty start for many of us in the morning. 0ur weather front and its cloud still in the south. the next one starting to approach the north. but the high pressure in between does promise more sunshine for many across scotland, northern ireland, northern england, wales. this cloudier zone, cool. some bits and pieces of rain drizzle takes a while to clear, and later on something more significant comes back into the north and west and the northern isles, along with a strengthening and quite gusty wind. so, that will make it feel chillier.

but some sunshine elsewhere, and temperatures similar to those of wednesday, which as i say, is about average for this time of year. then through the evening, that weather front will weaken. the rain amounts almost peter out as it pushes its way southwards. and so behind it, the cloud breaks. and ahead of it we could see some frost as well. so colder to start friday morning. again, a cold start across central and southern areas, but the high pressure is just relinquishing its grip for a while. now, these weather fronts will introduce more cloud and also that northerly wind. i do think it'll feel quite chilly on friday even when the cloud starts to break with sunshine for north—east scotland, eastern england, a bracing wind and we still have some rain on this weather front. it doesn't look like anything significant, but introduces more cloud across the skies and give us some patchy nuisance rain. a little bit chillier than the 9 or 10

would suggest. then the high pressure's back for the weekend. strong high pressure building, keeping those weather fronts at bay once again. as we look towards the end of february and through the weekend, quite a bit of cloud around, drizzly showers, fog and frost, but not a lot of rain is in the forecast.

welcome to bbc news. i'm lisa—marie misztak. our top stories: ahead of the first anniversary of the russian invasion of ukraine, president putin once again defends his special military operation. translation: there are battles going on right now— on our historical frontiers, for our people. courageous warriors are fighting. china's top foreign affairs official is in moscow for talks, with beijing expected to unveil a possible peace plan. 11 palestinians are killed and more than 100 injured in an israeli—raid on the occupied west bank. british and irish political leaders condemn the shooting of an off—duty policeman in northern ireland. he's in a critical condition. and the latest discovery from the james webb space telescope that could shed new light on the dawn of the universe.