The popular chat website Omegle is shutting down after 14 years.

“As much as I wish circumstances were different, the stress and expense of this fight – coupled with the existing stress and expense of operating Omegle, and fighting its misuse – are simply too much. Operating Omegle is no longer sustainable, financially nor psychologically,” Omegle founder Leif K-Brooks said in a lengthy statement.

The founder noted a “constant barrage of attacks on communication services” that were “based on the behavior of a malicious subset of users.”

Despite their efforts to put a positive impact beyond the site, such as working with local agencies by providing evidence on the website collected against these “evildoers” now rotting behind bars, and welcoming constructive feedback, K-Brooks said the “recent attacks have felt anything but constructive.”

“The only way to please these people is to stop offering the service. Sometimes they say so, explicitly and avowedly; other times, it can be inferred from their act of setting standards that are not humanly achievable. Either way, the net result is the same,” the founder added.

Omegle has been brimming with controversies over the years, such as reports of abusers and pedophiles lurking around the site.

In 2021, BBC found out children exposed themselves to strangers online through the video chat option in Omegle, often captured and distributed by predators from the website.

BBC investigations also revealed that Omegle was mentioned in over 50 cases against pedophiles in the past two years—more than 20 in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, Colombia, and Cyprus.