Is Google Social Site A Help To Terrorists?

News from USA Today: Google's social networking site Orkut is being used to "rally support for Osama bin Laden, share videos and Web links promoting terrorism and recruit non-Arabic-speaking Westerners." The USA Today article quotes terrorist experts as saying that on Orkut "at least 10 communities are devoted to praising bin Laden, al-Qaeda or jihad (holy war) against the United States."

It adds that the largest of the communities has more than 2,000 members, and that that community links to the site of the Islamic Army in Iraq, which claimed responsibility for a bombing that killed 10 Marines in Fallujah.

Like it or not, this is what life is like on the Web, and especially at social sites like Orkut and others. There's a natural tendency to want to close down these communities down, and there are certainly arguments in favor of doing it. But close them down one place, and they'll pop up on another. And once you start closing down some communities, it's a slippery slope to wanting to close other, more legitimate ones. So it's best to just leave them be, and know that better communities will eventually win out.