Gaurav Rathore
His write-ups blend creativity, personal experience, and tailored technical advice, meeting reader needs effectively.
Today, I’ve brought you yet another safety guide to a popular chatting site, i.e., Tinychat.
Just as the name suggests, Tinychat is a chatting website (similar to Y99 Chat) that lets you connect with strangers through chats. However, the thing to remember is that the site was shut down in 2024.
So, if you are interested in learning more, jump straight into the blog!
Here, I’m going to tell you everything about the site, including what went down with it, its safety concerns, and how you can keep your kids safe on such chat sites.
Tinychat was a free chatting site that allowed users to create or join virtual chat rooms on any topic of their choice and connect with strangers from all over the world.
Moreover, it was launched in February 2009 and only offered web-based chat rooms. Later on, in December 2014, it was acquired by Paltalk (another popular random video chatting platform).
However, this site is primarily involved in various controversies about racist and sexist behavior within its chat rooms. This often leaves the user concerned about their safety and security. For this reason, Tinychat was closed in 2024 by Paltalk.
Let’s dig deeper into this write-up in order to uncover what happened to Tinychat.com.
When you go to Tinychat.com, you’ll see that the site is listed for sale!
It’s because Tinychat was shut down on December 16th, 2024, and the closing announcement appeared on the site (which isn’t available anymore as it’s listed as ‘for sale’).
It was closed because Paltalk, its parent company, put many restrictions on the site.
Although Paltalk previously said it would let Tiny Chat remain a standalone app, Tiny Chat’s technical problems were becoming pretty frequent. Because of that, many users felt that the site wasn’t worth paying a huge amount of subscription fee, which caused it to lose many users.
As a result, Paltalk decided to shut down the site!
In 2013, the Tinychat website was targeted by the National Security Agency’s PRISM surveillance program, which many people believe to be one of the many reasons behind its shutdown (though it’s just a theory).
No, Tinychat was not safe for kids (which could be why the site was shut down).
The site claimed that users must be at least 18 years old or 13 years old under parental supervision to use the Tiny Chat website. However, it lacked a strict age verification process, meaning kids could easily lie about their age to use the site.
Moreover, the platform allowed users to join virtual rooms with strangers, which had many risks, like being exposed to inappropriate content or becoming the target of predation.
Apart from that, the site was going through many technical issues, which had the potential to risk your safety and privacy.
However, since it is already shut down, you don’t need to worry about your kid’s safety anymore.
Although Tinychat.com isn’t working anymore, the site had many risks for both kids and adults alike. If you are curious to know more about its risks, take a look at the list below.
Previous users have said that their username and password were often shared with the people in the chat rooms. Moreover, if you share your location, it could end up being tracked by users and reveal your identity.
Since these chat rooms were anonymous, anyone could end up encountering some creep sharing some inappropriate or sexually explicit content. It could also expose people to illegal or harmful content.
Many hackers used to disguise themselves as genuine people and force people into revealing personal information. People could also send malicious links and ransomware to users, which could lead to data leaks and users’ devices being infected.
Apart from all of that, Tinychat.com had huge predation risks. Strangers could impersonate anyone and get access to your sensitive information and force kids into doing unspeakable things. On top of that, cyberbullying and harassment were also pretty common on these sites.
Although the Tinychat website is shut down, there are still many similar sites on the internet that could pose similar risks and put your kids in dangerous situations.
So, if your kid is planning to use sites like Monkey or Camegle, you should initiate strict action to keep them away from these sites.
Here, I’ve mentioned some useful tips to ensure your kids’ safety.
First of all, you must discuss the risks of anonymous chatting apps like Kik and Teen Chat, like how they could risk your kids’ privacy and make them the target of various predators or criminals lurking around.
You should establish clear rules regarding internet usage. Make sure to set some clear rules on which website they can use, whom they can talk to, and what information they can share with another person.
While your kids are meeting strangers and chatting on other messaging apps, it would be better if you ensured supervision over them. It will help you take immediate action if anything goes wrong and if they come across anyone suspicious.
It would also be a wise decision to teach them how to report or block users. So if they ever encounter a predator, they can protect themselves even when they have no adult by their side.
If you think your kids are uncomfortable with you accompanying them while chatting, you can use parental control apps like Boomerang and Aura. These apps will give you instant alerts when your child is trying to access some dangerous sites or apps.
On top of that, you can also file a lawsuit against such perpetrators to safeguard your children. There are several legal authorities that prevent child cyber crimes, including the FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Forces (CEHTTFs) and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) CyberTipline.
Since the Tinychat website is closed, you might be looking for other similar sites that offer identical services. Here, I’ve jotted down some of the safer alternatives to Tinychat in the market, so make sure to take a look!
First on the list, we have Wire, which is an instant messenger and a video calling app that lets you connect with people through voice, video, or text chats. It was developed by Wire Swiss and is available on most platforms.
Who doesn’t know WhatsApp? It’s an extremely popular free messaging and video-calling app that is supported on mobile devices, laptops, PCs, etc. It is one of the safe options and even offers built-in WhatsApp parental controls.
Previously known as Facebook Messenger, Messenger is an app owned by Meta. Although Messenger is a standalone app, it’s related to Facebook and allows you to chat with your Facebook friends.
WeChat is a Chinese “super app” developed by Tencent that offers social media, messaging, payments, and other useful features. It is a popular platform in China and is said to support the daily life of users.
Similar to other messaging apps, Viber also lets you send messages and make calls. It is end-to-end encrypted and offers various features, like disappearing messages, hidden-number chats, etc.
Telegram is a cloud-based messaging app and social media platform where you can send messages, share media, and make calls. What’s more, Telegram is said to be safe and secure, meaning that what you do on the app remains private.
To sum it all up, Tinychat was a web-based video and audio chat system that allowed users to join or create chatrooms and talk with strangers for free. However, due to some reasons, it’s no longer available!
Nevertheless, there are still some similar websites and apps that are much safer and are easily available, like Yubo, Viber, Telegram, etc. However, if you are introducing these apps to your kids, I would recommend that you stay cautious.
Make sure they are under your supervision at all times, and install parental controls to protect their safety.
Tinychat is used to create and join virtual chatrooms and meet strangers through voice, video, and text chats.
Tinychat was shut down because of the many restrictions by Paltalk, as it failed to manage the rising technical and user experience issues.
You can’t access it because Tiny Chat is no longer available. It was shut down on December 16th, 2024.
Some alternatives to Tinychat include Viber, Wire, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.
