Since we seem to be living in an era when everything from global poverty, the terrorism problem, juvenile delinquency and cultural decadence is being blamed on Social networking sites, like Orkut, I wanted to share a couple of points about Social Networking to all those loud-mouthed morality policepeople who have never used the site themselves, but find it necessary to sound off on the irrational connection between Orkut and every unsavoury occurence in our country.

Tapan previously touched on this here and Mahendra has an excellent post here on the broader implications of banning Orkut.

1. Orkut is a platform. It’s a tool. It does not have dark soul and a forked tail.

Orkut is a platform for people to meet up. For me personally, I have managed to get back in touch with old friends from the past, people who had completely disappeared when I changed schools/cities etc. It is also a platform for activism. Just look at the Doctors without borders community. There are even people sharing health information.

Of course, there is spam. Of course, there are child predators. Of course, Orkut is definitely unsafe for women who do not take specific precautions. But a social network is, by nature, self correcting. And if Orkut and its users cannot fix some of these problems, people will migrate to safer platforms, such as Facebook. The crux of the matter is, Social networking is here to stay. So get used to it. Talk to your children, regulate their time spent online and advise them on how to surf safely. Braying for Orkut’s blood is like conducting a trial of the AK47 that mowed down 10 people in a crowded marketplace.

So learn it now. Adnan Patrawala had an orkut account, like millions of others. Orkut did not wield the knife that killed him. But claiming that Orkut facilitated his murder is like saying that mobile phones and cars facilitated his killing. If there had been no Orkut, killers will use other means.

2. The argument about “Orkut is causing our children to get addicted to it. They waste hours on it daily”

Replace the word Orkut with Television and the patent ridiculousness of the argument becomes self-evident. In the 90s, we were worried about fat, lazy couch potato kids, munching on Lays, sipping on Pepsi and watching WWE (WWF then). You know what? Atleast kids are meeting up with friends online, and not sitting alone, passively consuming entertainment. The Social web is a two way street, and that is mostly good for your kids, if you can educate them on the dangers and pitfalls of online behavior.

At the end of the day, I can’t help but point out that at some deep level, this is about the erosion of authority. Kids do most things by themselves nowadays. They collaborate on homework. They research on Wikipedia. They share their daily lives on blogs and get comments and advice from a global audience. They meet up with people of the opposite gender with an ease that cannot be imagined in our romance-oppressive society that frowns upon any sort of boy-girl contact. Kids will be far less susceptible to ideologies, religious, caste-based or otherwise. The social web is way too agile in revealing fraudulent arguments and exposing questionable ideologies. If I am told at home that only (my caste, my religion, my country) is superior, all I have to do is come online and see the entire world in all its diversity, all the blogs, all the opinions, all the videos, podcasts and photos, and realize how parochial and narrow-minded we can be if we live in ignorance.

As with most emerging technologies, there are many problems. But hey, things evolve and mature over time. Like we did with television and mobile phones, we will figure out how to make the bad things go away. So the next time you sound off about Social networking, go create an account, get in touch with old friends, scrap, and then talk.