Google To Close Orkut Pages That Encourage Violence
This from the Miami Herald; Google has “agreed to shut down some communities on its popular Orkut social networking site because the Brazilian government says they advocate violence and human-rights violations.” More from the article:
“Google agreed to shut down any sites that violate Orkut’s terms of service, which forbid ”any illegal or unauthorized purpose,” after the company met Tuesday with a Brazilian human-rights commission, which presented evidence that Brazilians have been using the invitation-only networking site to promote crimes and violence.
Orkut is extremely popular in Brazil with about eight million users, representing about a quarter of all Brazilians who have access to the Internet.”
In addition, “Google had agreed to remove six websites from Orkut and help police identify those who posted the pages as part of a preliminary accord…..the agreement would, in principle, require Google to hold user information for up to six months to provide time for Brazilian courts to subpoena information.”
We’re not talking about the run of the mill MySpace stuff here where kids decide to torment their classmates by calling them names or plan out elaborate pranks; the Orkut sites that this article is talking about are encouraging Brazilians to assassinate their President, plant bombs, etc. Just to clarify that.
