Orkut: Youth Icon or Banned Substance?

Orkut is the MTV and Pepsi Youth Icon 2007, and has over 6.6 Million (66 lakh) Indian subscribers. This consists of a huge amount of youngsters.

There are more than a million communities on Orkut, covering absolutely everything from pizza and pasta, from Film star to superstar, and from your pet to your teacher. People freely express their opinions and views here. The Internet has always been a medium carrying free information, and that’s exactly where the trouble starts for Orkut.

The king of social networking has run into trouble with the governments across the globe on more than one occasion. Recently they faced protest from the student wing of Shiv Sena. The group opposes what they see as an increasing mimicry of the West. It often stops Valentine's Day celebrations, attacks clubs and pubs, and prevents screening of sexually bold films.

The student wing of the Shiv Sena party said many Indians use Orkut to bad-mouth religious groups, disturb communal harmony, and spread misinformation about India. Is banning Orkut the solution?

Back in March it was announced that Orkut had agreed to provide Mumbai Police with details of the IP address from which an objectionable message or blog had been posted on the site and the Internet service provider involved.

The Internet is no doubt a great tool and an innovation like we have never seen before, but with great power comes great responsibility, Its up to us to use the Internet wisely and make productive use of it. Yes we are free to express our opinions, but at the same time we need to see and understand the bigger picture.

Young minds are known to be rebels, and the more you suppress them the more they will come up. With caution and care we need to explain to them what’s right and what’s wrong. We just can’t tell them not to surf Orkut because a few handful of communities have some objectionable content. We should stand strong and show faith in our youngsters, such that we are unaffected and undivided against all attempts to disrupt our harmony.

Article Author: Ankur Agarwal

Somewhat techie!! :)

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