Orkut founder launches campaign to revive social network around real communities

Orkut coming back Founder wants to relaunch the social network with a new purpose

Launched in January 2004, Orkut was an early social networking platform created by Google engineer Orkut Buyukkokten.

Orkut Buyukkokten, the engineer behind the social network that once dominated India and Brazil, has asked the public to help him bring Orkut back as a platform built around real people and communities. Over 2.55 lakh (255,000) people had signed up in support at the time of writing.Bring back Orkut?Buyukkokten launched the campaign to gather people interested in a new social network. In a post on X, he said the internet should help people find their own people, with friendship, community and a place to belong. He asked followers to add their names at orkut.com and send their supporter card to someone they want to bring along.The internet should help us find our people. Friendship. Community. A place to belong. Help me bring Orkut back in that spirit. Add your name at https://t.co/FO48fJMjEq and share your supporter card with someone you want to bring along.Love,Orkut pic.twitter.com/zesE18Y3Fd— Orkut Buyukkokten (@orkut) October 8, 2026 Supporters register for free with an email address and country of residence. Each person gets a shareable card showing their name, country, a unique supporter code, a QR code and the date they joined. According to the privacy policy of Orkut, the codes are used to count how many people reach the site through shared cards.What the founder saysIn a letter on the site, Buyukkokten says he created some of the earliest social networks more than two decades ago and has watched social media go wrong. He blames two decades of design focused on grabbing attention, with feeds built for engagement instead of connection, and says a generation of children grew up addicted and divided by algorithms. He adds that the arrival of AI is eroding the idea that made social networking worth building, which is that a real person sits on the other end.Communities are central to his pitch. He says people who miss the old Orkut recall its communities most, such as groups that repaired the same motorcycle, rode the same bus route or disliked Mondays. In a feed, he writes, a user is only part of an audience, whereas in a community they are a member. He also points to bots, AI-generated content, deepfakes and rogue agents as threats to that model, and says AI cannot create joy or hope.The campaign is not a relaunch of the old network. The project has no launch date and depends on decisions the company has not announced. The founder says it wants to gather millions of supporters but has not said whether a minimum number is required. Twitter vs Orkut: Netizens share how the social media apps helped them find loveWhat is Orkut?For those unaware, Orkut launched in 2004 and went on to become hugely popular, especially in Brazil and India. Brazil alone once had more than 50 million active users. It was arguably the only thriving social networking site in India between 2005 and 2008. Google eventually shut the service down.This is not Buyukkokten's first attempt at a revival. In April 2022, the orkut.com address came back online after years of inactivity, with a message from him about a project to build communities and fight hate and misinformation. His later social network, Hello, was shut down in April 2022. The new campaign has also drawn attention because the 2022 message went viral again in 2025 amid false reports of a relaunch.