Orkut [1], Google's experiment on Social Networking Services [2], is extremely popular in Brazil. More than [3] 53% of Orkut users is Brazilian — even more, if you take into account Brazilian's profiles that don't show their country information and profiles by Brazilians living abroad — and more than 70% percent of Brazil's Internet users are actually profiled and active on the network.
A very large part of Brazil's online life is going on inside Orkut. Still, most of the Brazilian mainstream media and the blogosphere don't pay much attention to this social networking service, unless there's something bad to be said about it. News about hate-groups meeting at Orkut, or about pedophiles using of the social networking service to exchange child pornography or to hunt for potential victims, are fairly common on both the Brazilian media and blogosphere. But what else is going on there? Who might be all these Brazilians at Orkut, and what are they doing there?
To give Global Voices Online readers some insight into the answers to these questions, let's take a quick look at some of the Brazilian activity at Orkut, and you're invited to come along if you have an Orkut profile or a Google account – you need at least a basic registration — in order to follow the links:
First of all, let's take a look at some profiles. The first thing you notice is… Brazilians have a lot of friends [4]. It's very common in Brazil to add everyone you know — or even just heard of — and fake [5] or “non-person [6]” profiles to your friend's list. More than that, it's usual to add people you don't know and don't even want to know, just in case you wish to visit their profiles someday. It's also easy to notice how fond we are of showing pictures of ourselves and our friends [7], except when we want to look particularly cool [8] (and that's fairly less common). Most profiles are very colorful in language and imagery, and show a lot [9] about what it's intended for the profile viewers to know about the people behind them. It's easy to feel that despite personal taste [10] differences, Brazilians feel very “at home” at Orkut and their profiles are testimony to this [11].
Gigi is famous on the scene. Lots of friends, lots of pictures, long description, busy scrapbook: Typical Brazil.
The scrapbooks, places where users can leave open short messages to others on their profiles, are heavily used not only to chat, sometimes to many people at a time — is if everyone was in a house meeting or a party — but are also usual places to advertise parties, events and share quotes and textual fragments. It's a matter of opinion whether these are spam or just free-form personal advertising.
Fake profiles [12], as well as bogus communities — like this one [13] named “it must be boring to be a tree” — are very common. However, more than causing mayhem, these are more commonly put to mostly healthy [14] humorous uses. Some even say Brazilians rise fake profiles and bogus communities to a work of art [15].
On the “I woke up somewhat bilingual today” they don't even have forum topics. The community was made just for the fun of having it's banner on their profiles.
Now, let's take a look at the communities. Besides the vast majority of communities aimed more to provide humorous [16] or ideological [17] “badges” for their members to show on their profiles than places for real conversations, there are a lot of serious communities too, and a lot of interesting and passionate debates are going on there. Let's take two examples. one from a community discussing the women's right do decide on abortion [18] and the other from a community discussing Brazilian ban on WordPress [19].
Abortion is only legal in Brazil in cases of sexual abuse or pregnancy that endangers the mother's life. In this thread about whose interests were behind the legalization of abortion in Brazil, [20] on the community “Aborto: um tema em debate” [“Abortion: a matter under discussion”], mor@ngoღღ [21] says [Pt]:
“[…]Hoje li um texto* que no mínimo aguçou essa minha vontade de esclarecer a questão. Trata-se dos dizeres do Professor Humberto Vieira presidente da PROVIDAFAMILIA.
De acordo com sua pesquisa, ele mostra que existem correntes eugenistas que pregam o controle populacional usando entre outros recursos o aborto.
Essas correntes seriam responsáveis por discursos bem parecidos com o que vemos aqui. Por detrás de um feminismo de fachada querem reduzir-nos em número para que não representemos uma ameaça ao domínio dos países imperialistas.[…]“
“[…]I read an article today that sharpened my urge to clarify [this] matter. It was about what professor Humberto Vieira, president of PROVIDAFAMILIA [roughly: “PRO-LIFE-AND-FAMILY”] association, says. According to his researches, he shows that there are some eugenic [22] factions that preach the population control using, among other methods, abortion. These factions were responsible for speeches that are very similar to the [pro-choice [23]] ones we see here. Hiding behind a facade of shallow feminism, they want to reduce our numbers so we don't represent a menace to the imperialist countries domination.[…]”
Then Jose Guilherme [24] furiously retorts [Pt]:
“[…]se vc levou a sério esse texto mediocre e paranoico por favor vai pra comunidade do Olavo de Carvalho. Pq lá é que eles gostam dessas teorias de dominação mundial.
E se for verdade ? Vamos deixar de fazer algo pq os outros querem isso ? Vamos ditar as nossas políticas públicas para contrariar aos supostos “imperialistas” e não pq interessa ou não ao país ? E como diminuir população ajuda os “imperialistas” ? Tudo vago e sem explicação… claro…“
“[…]if u took this mediocre and paranoid article seriously, u should go to the Olavo de Carvalho [25] community. ‘Cos they really like these world-domination theories over there. And what if it's true? Should we refrain from doing something just because someone else wants us to? Should we modify our public policies just to counteract some supposed ‘imperialists’, and not because it is in our country's best interests? And how does reducing the population help the ‘imperialists'? All very vague and with no explanations… of course…”
Politely, mor@ngoღღ [21] tries to support her point:
“Eu entendo controle de natalidade como determinar quantos filhos cada pessoa deve ter. Diferente de planejamento familiar. Pelo menos era o que eu pensava. Eu via planejamento familiar como dar ferramentas para que as pessoas escolhessem quantos filhos querem ter…
Mas se a campanha vier acompanhada de atos proibitivos ou punitivos vira controle de natalidade, isso eu sou contra.“
“I understand birth control as the determination of to how many kids a person is allowed to give birth. It's not the same as family planning. At least, that's what I used to believe. I used to see family planning as bestowing tools for people to choose how many children they want to have… but if the campaign includes prohibitive or punitive acts, it becomes birth control, and I am against that.”
Kelli [26] joins the conversation saying [Pt]:
” Meio incoerente não?
[…]
Aborto criminalizado é um ato proibitivo e punitivo, então vc tbm é contra?“
“Doesn't it sound a little incoherent? […] The ban on the abortion is a prohibitive and punitive act. So, you're against this [ban]?”
Then José Guilherme delivers his coup-de-grâce [27]:
“Morango […] Esse discurso é meramente uma forma de atacar a legitimidade de quem é a favor da legalização. Pintar essas pessoas ou como capachos de “agentes” externos… ou como ingenuos manipulados. Ou seja… ao invês de debater as questões… buscam atacar as pessoas e suas motivações. Ad Hominem em escala grande.
Na ANDSC menos de 25% das mulheres disseram que abortariam/abortaram… então ao menos 75% realmente acreditam que as OUTRAS devem ter esse direito sem que isso seja reflexo de interesse proprio.
As teorias ditas “Freakonomics” de controle da natalidade tambem foram rejeitadas pela ANDSC.“
“Morango […] your speech is merely a way to undermine the legitimacy of those who fight for the legalization [of the abortion]. To make them look like servants to external ‘agents'… or like manipulated naive people. So… instead of discussing the important matters… [you] seek to attack people and their motivations. It's a mass Ad Hominem [28] [argument]. At the ANDSC [Aborto não deve ser crime – “abortion should not be a crime [29]” [Pt], a pro-choice Orkut community] less than 25% of the women said they would eventually get an abortion, or have already had one… so, at least 75% of them really believe the OTHER ones should have this right [to choose], without any personal interest involved. The mentioned ‘Freakonomics [30]‘ birth control theories were rejected, too, at ANDSC.”
At another community, about the Brazilian justice threat to ban WordPress.com domain [19] [Pt] (already discussed here [31] and in many other places), there's a thread where the members show their discontent at the idea of one million users being punished for just one blogger's misdeeds. Paulo [32] calls its peers into action:
“Calar a boca de 1 milhão pelo erro de um ?
Não podemos deixar isto acontecer. Se alguém errou, que pague-se pelo ato cometido, mas não se pode penalizar uma coletividade, devido o erro de um indivíduo.
Temos que chamar a atenção da mídia e da sociedade para este cerceamento da liberdade que querem cometer.
Mande e-mails para os amigos, para a imprensa, para autoridades.
Se nos omitirmos, teremos nossa boca calada. E depois não adianta chorar. “
“Silencing one million [users] to punish for just one's mistake? We can't let it happen. If someone misbehaved, he or she should pay for his/her acts, but you can't punish the entire collective for just one individual's misdeeds. We must call the media and the society attention to this violation of our freedoms that they want to commit. Send emails to your friends, to the media and to the authorities. If we omit ourselves, we will have our mouth shut, and then it will be no use to crying over this.”
Athos [33] seems to agree with Pedro, and vents his frustration over his faceless suspect [Pt]:
” Se verem um blog de pornografia,denunciem.
Vai ver é ele que fez toda a merda.“
“If you see a pornographic blog, report it. Maybe it was the responsible for all this shit.”
There's always a lot to say about Brazilian use of Orkut. On my next articles, I'll try to keep track of it, and use it together with the Brazilian conversations on the blogosphere, to amplify Brazilian voices on the Internet. This will surely provide a better picture of what we have to say to each other, and to the world.
As a bonus, here is a video, provided by José Murilo in his blog Ecologia Digital [34] [Pt], where we can watch John Perry Barlow [35] — political activist, social thinker and mythical band Grateful Dead's lyrics writer — explaining his views on Orkut and Brazil, and telling us how he may have been an important part of all this Brazilian online party:
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The author of this article is on Orkut too. He may be found here [36]. Don't forget to leave your opinion about his cat. Both man and cat appreciate it a lot.
(author's note: most of Orkut links in this article are in Portuguese)