October 9, 2026, (Inside AI) — More than a decade after Google pulled the plug on Orkut, the platform's founder is testing whether nostalgia can be converted into a viable challenge to algorithm-driven social media. Orkut Buyukkokten has launched a petition at orkut.com asking users to demand a new social network built around what he calls authentic human connection. The campaign has collected over 260,000 signatures from users across 115 countries.
The petition marks the most concrete signal yet that Buyukkokten intends to revive a brand that once defined social networking for millions in India and Brazil. His open letter frames the effort as a direct response to the rise of AI-generated content, deepfakes, bots, and autonomous agents that increasingly populate social feeds. The central claim is blunt: social media has betrayed its original purpose, and artificial intelligence is accelerating that betrayal.
"I want Orkut to create a new social network focused on authentic people, real connection, and genuine belonging," reads the message greeting visitors to orkut.com.
The timing reflects a broader cultural shift. As generative AI floods platforms with synthetic text, images, and video, a growing subset of internet users is actively seeking what some researchers call "analogue" digital experiences. Buyukkokten is positioning Orkut as the antidote.
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A Founder's Case Against Engagement Metrics
Buyukkokten's letter traces a familiar arc. He created one of the earliest social networks in 2004, watched it grow to tens of millions of users, then saw it dismantled by a competitor that optimized relentlessly for time-on-site and advertising revenue. His argument now is that the entire industry made a category error.
"Over two decades ago, I created some of the earliest social networks. I have watched with you as social media has gone wrong," he wrote.
The letter does not spare specifics. Buyukkokten describes feeds built around engagement rather than connection, and a generation of young users surrendered to algorithms that addicted, divided, and monetized them. He argues that AI now threatens the foundational premise of social networking: the presence of another human being on the other side of a conversation.
"You know what AI can't create? Joy. Hope. Gratitude. Wonder. Amusement. Inspiration. Love," he wrote.
That formulation places Buyukkokten in direct tension with the dominant trajectory of the technology industry. Major platforms are investing heavily in AI-generated content, AI companions, and autonomous agents designed to interact with users. Meta, for instance, has publicly outlined a path toward personal superintelligence, and its AI products chief has emphasized user control as a design principle. Buyukkokten's counterargument is that no amount of capability can substitute for the emotional weight of a real relationship.
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His proposed alternative borrows from Orkut's original architecture. He emphasizes communities over feeds, describing the distinction in structural terms.
"In a feed you're an audience, in a community you're a member. That was the whole point," he said.
The petition asks supporters to add their names, share a supporter card, and recruit others. Buyukkokten's closing line is a direct challenge to the metrics that govern modern platform design.
"Let's stop optimising for attention and start optimising for each other," he said.
India's Orkut Generation Waits For Proof
For Indian users, the campaign carries particular resonance. Orkut became a household name in India around 2006, arriving just as internet access expanded beyond major cities. It was not a niche product for tech enthusiasts. School friends, extended families, and office colleagues used it to reconnect across geography and time. Features like testimonials, scraps, and personalized profiles made interactions feel personal in a way that later platforms struggled to replicate.
By 2008, Orkut ranked as the most popular website in both Brazil and India. Google localized the interface into Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, and Bengali around 2007. The platform's simplicity was its advantage. It required little technical literacy and rewarded genuine social interaction.
The decline came swiftly. Facebook's global expansion, a major Orkut redesign in 2009, and Facebook's overtaking of Orkut in Brazil in 2011 eroded its position. Google announced the shutdown on June 30, 2014, and the platform went dark on September 30 of that year. Google cited the growth of YouTube, Google+, and Blogger as reasons for reallocating resources. The website reappeared in 2022 with a cryptic letter from Buyukkokten, but no product followed.
Whether the current petition leads to an actual platform remains unverified. Buyukkokten has not published a timeline, funding model, or technical architecture. The 260,000 signatures represent a fraction of Orkut's peak user base, which numbered in the tens of millions. Building a social network that resists algorithmic optimization while competing for attention against entrenched incumbents is a formidable operational challenge, not merely a design philosophy.
Still, the campaign taps into a measurable frustration. AI-generated profiles, bot-driven engagement, and synthetic media have made it increasingly difficult for users to know whether they are interacting with a person or a model. Buyukkokten's bet is that enough people care about that distinction to sign up, show up, and stay.
