Apparently, it's not just Brazilians who like Orkut. Bloggers Blog points to "Orkut Home to Osama Bin Laden Fan Clubs" from USA Today, which reports that Google's social networking service is popular with Al-Qaeda sympathizers.
The largest community there has 2,000 members, and there are at least 10 different Al-Qaeda related communities. Google says it may remove objectionable material from Orkut and decided to do some with some of the stuff posted in these communities, after USA Today contacted them.
Google recently explained to analysts wondering why Orkut wasn't more popular outside of Brazil that:
Brazilians are just very community-oriented.
I found that a pretty lame explanation, especially given there are plenty of successful community sites in other countries such as, hmm, the United States. But at least they've got something new to say at the next analyst day -- Al-Qaeda supporters are community-oriented as well, it seems.
Postscript: Loren Baker's Why Brazil Loves Orkut! gives you 10 reasons why Brazil is hot on Orkut.
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