Fergie's Tech Blog

Osama bin Laden 'Fan Clubs' Build Online Communities

Hey -- wait a minute. Didn't some criminal Brazilians use Orkut as drug distribution network?

Yes, in fact, I believe it did.

Kasie Hunt writes in USA Today:

Al-Qaeda sympathizers are using Orkut, a popular, worldwide Internet service owned by Google, to rally support for Osama bin Laden, share videos and Web links promoting terrorism and recruit non-Arabic-speaking Westerners, according to terrorism experts and a survey of the sites.

Most jihadist message boards on traditional websites are in Arabic and require users to know someone connected with the boardbefore they can gain access. Social networking services such as Orkut, Friendster and MySpace, however, allow users to create personal profiles and associate with "communities" based on shared interests. After users join one of these services, they have access to the forum postings in any public community.

These popular Internet services can be used for everything from publicizing a garage band to finding dates to connecting supporters of democracy — or terrorism.

posted by Fergie @ 3/08/2006 09:02:00 PM