What does Orkut have to do with crimes?

When I came home from work, I found Star News Asia reporting on how Orkut is a channel for depravity and crime. There were blurbs like "Bach ke rehna" (Hindi: save yourself, or stay away), "Maut ki website" (Website of death), "Kishoron ko kiya ja raha hai gumraha" (Youngsters are being misled), "Orkut par ankush jaroori?" (Should Orkut be censored?).

It started with a report of a young girl murdered by a "friend" she met on Orkut. Google news shows similar cases being covered in various media. Too many to list. But what was strange about this news story was the exclusive focus on Orkut and blaming it for:

• A means of disseminating information to its users about rave parties (where all-night dancing and drugs are mixed together);
• Misleading youngsters: while Orkut started as a means of connecting people, it has (according to the news story) become a hive of people talking about sex, rave parties, drugs, etc.

I find it strange to see Orkut being targeted so exclusively and being portrayed as promoting these activities. Several objections come to mind:

• So this girl met this guy online, befriended him, and met him in a hotel room alone; the guy turned out to be not that friendly and caring and murdered the girl. Agreed, one knows less about people you meet online. That requires some care and judgment on behalf of the user, no?
• This meeting could have happened off line. I know of people being harmed by friendly looking acquaintances. What about that?
• Is Orkut a motivator for rave parties, or are people wishing to go to rave parties using Orkut as a medium?
  
• Why Orkut, and not other social networking sites? Because it is more popular in India? If Orkut were not popular, would people have not used any other social networking platform? If none were available, would they not use email lists, IRC channels, BBSes? Shall we ban them?
  
• Agreed, all kinds of users interact online and some are not so moral. Is it Orkut's responsibility for what people post and tell each other? Is it a parent/guardian's responsibility or Orkut's that young children are not exposed to adult content?
• The internet is a dangerous place. Many sites and forums contain adult content. Places other than Orkut are used to organize parties, some of them "not so nice". Shall we block the internet?

The news story seems to me to be more an attempt to sensationalize and demonize and less to point to a problem, inform people, or offer a balanced view.

Here is where we could go from here:

• Let's ban Orkut. Users will go to MySpace. Lets ban that, next. Then Facebook. Then ...
• Finally we will have stomped out the evil social nets. Next target: BBSes and forums. They make it too easy for people to reach each other.
• Ergh... we forgot about personal web-pages. No more personal websites. All media to be controlled and all publications to be approved by Almighty Censorship Alliance of Sensational News Channels.
• Oops, we forgot about email. Bye bye, you nasty little disseminator of information about parties, drugs and personal details.
• Now we plug the network cable out of the PC.
• Ban books: too many porno flimsies around.
• No more phone: you better come home and get interviewed by the family before you meet my daughter.
• No talking to strangers on the roadside.
• No roads.

Funny, I don't see anything about responsible and judicious use of communication anywhere in the list. I guess only news channels know how to do that. Ornery folks like us should just ban everything.