Orkut, a popular social network powered by Google has quiet recently implemented something that’s annoying its users big time. Orkut has started suppressing/removing any external link that a user adds into his/her status update space or ‘community description’ section.
We all know how social networks are spammed by crazy frogs (a.k.a. spammers) but that doesn’t mean that the majority should suffer with any step that’s taken by the social network in the name of Anti-spam policy. The main goal of Orkut behind suppressing external links from user’s status updates was to minimize the possibilities of spreading of spammy links that takes other users to malware sites.
But they probably ignored the end user’s distress that will occur, just because of this step. I personally have no idea how this step has affected ‘spam affliction rate’ in Orkut but i know one thing very clear…Orkut has rather taken a reverse step in its evolution as a better social network by implementing this anti-spam policy.
Social networks are meant to stay in touch with your buddies and share your thoughts and experiences with your friend circle but now, just because of this new policy by Orkut, a user will not be able to share his short lived experiences with his friend circle. From now on, a user on Orkut will be prohibited from sharing a link (for instance)
- To his excursion pics on Flickr
- To his latest article on his personal blog
- To a YouTube video that he just saw and wanted his friends to take an immediate look at
- To anything on web that he found worthy enough to share with his pals on Orkut
- the list goes on….
And if Orkut administration considers this side of coin as well and abolishes this [Content suppressed] thing, they will only do better for their users, isn’t it !
Update : Orkut has recently reverted back one of its actions that was bugging orkut users since its implementation : ‘Link suppression’. Here’s the full post.