Orkut was a massive social experiment that defined early internet culture in Brazil and India.

Nature · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Launched in 2004 as a Google side project, Orkut became a dominant social network before fading into obscurity. It pioneered features like community-based social networking and profile customization, but its rapid growth also invited intense legal scrutiny, security vulnerabilities, and government bans across the Middle East and South Asia.

Orkut Büyükkökten, a software engineer at Google, launched Orkut on January 22, 2004, as an independent project. It was born from Google's '20 percent' policy, which encouraged employees to dedicate a portion of their time to side projects. The platform quickly gained massive traction, particularly in Brazil and India, where it became a central hub for social interaction between 2005 and 2008. By 2008, the platform's popularity in Brazil was so significant that Google moved its management and operations to Belo Horizonte to better handle the local user base and legal challenges.

The platform's features were ahead of their time, allowing users to rate friends on 'coolness' or 'trustworthiness' and join niche communities. However, this openness created significant friction. The site faced numerous controversies, including reports of racism, hate speech, and the use of the platform for illicit activities like drug sales. Governments in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE implemented bans, citing national security and moral concerns. Simultaneously, the platform struggled with severe technical issues, such as a 2006 worm that stole banking credentials and a 2007 session-hijacking vulnerability that allowed unauthorized access for up to 14 days after logout.

As competitors like Facebook and YouTube grew, Orkut's influence waned. On September 30, 2014, Google officially shut down the service, citing that the growth of other platforms had outpaced Orkut. While the site was briefly reactivated in April 2022 with a message from its founder, it remains a digital relic. Today, Google maintains an online archive of public community posts, preserving a snapshot of an era when social networking was still finding its footing in the global consciousness.

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