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Hatemongering Becoming A Problem On Orkut

Posted by Zonk on from the not-so-good dept.

jaquesparrow writes "Orkut is a well known beta experiment, an invite only environment based on social networks. Recently it has been reported that hate and racism is proliferating on Orkut. Besides the story in the Wilmington Star, the International Herald Tribune also has commentary on the situation." From the article: "For Google, the trouble on Orkut - which is still in beta, or test, form - could easily escalate. A prosecutor in Brazil, where the service is especially popular, has already initiated an investigation into some of the more virulent Orkut sites."

7 of 585 comments (clear)

  1. Hatred by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Inevitable as humanity continues to grow and expand. It's not a cause but a symptom of overpopulation.

  2. Why is it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    no one takes the time to stop and smell the Orkuts?

  3. Seen this before... by jonbeckett73 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I used to run a website (ThoughtCafe) for writers where they could give feedback on each others work. I had to close it down in the end because a small minority wrecked it for everybody. It seems most "community" websites suffer from the same issue - the possiblity of one "rogue" person to pose as several personalities within the website - basically in order to start an argument with themselves in order to draw others in, and then feed the argument. We never found an adequate defence against it.

    --
    Jonathan Beckett http://www.pluggedout.com
    1. Re:Seen this before... by General+Alcazar · · Score: 5, Interesting
      One possible solution that I see might be some fairly vigilant overseerers employed by Google to filter this stuff out. Currently, they have a sort of light weight version of this, in that contentious members get put in "jail" for a variable period of time depending on what, I do not know. However, this is obviously not working that well. They might need to keep a lot of censors employed in order to be effective. The problem with this is that they then may become liable.

      Why not implement a type of self-censorship by the memebers of the sort that Slashdot uses? There certainly is enough hatemongering going on here, and Slashdot is far from perfect, but it seems to be evolving towards something that sort of works. Thoughts?

    2. Re:Seen this before... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Instead of banning someone from a forum, what about just flagging troublemakers and having their posts just be invisible to everyone else? The troll can still see their own posts and everything will appear normal, but it will seem like they are just being ignored.

      If you kick someone off, they'll find an alias and new IP and return for more attention. If they think they are just being ignored, they'll find somewhere else to play.

    3. Re:Seen this before... by Chriscypher · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I've seen people do similar at parties. The 'rogue' joins a small group, steers the conversation towards some topic, then exits on to to the next small group to repeat. The party takes on the general tone of the agitator. I confronted one agitator who fessed up. He did it for fun. He liked to see how far he could turn the party. What I found distressing in this instance was he would steer conversations towards the morbid. Also, no one else at the party was aware of his actions.

      This also sounds a bit like what a friend used to do in chat rooms on AOL. People would go there looking for some hot chat, and he would deliberately weird them out for fun. He would weird them out with conversation so bizarre, they were incredulous they had found such a nutcase. I found this hilarious to read as a third-party, and it probably did the target some good, as they will be forewarned about anonymous fiends on the other side of their chat.

      Social manipulation is nothing new; this style of agitation once restricted to face-to-face interactions has become empowered in online social groups or forums.

      --
      "You have liberated me from thought."
  4. An insider's view by the_mighty_$ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Here is a post from an insider giving some of his oppinions about what's going on:

    http://media.orkut.com/articles/0100.html

    --
    VI VI VI - the editor of the beast!