Orkut might be coming back.

Founder Orkut Büyükkökten has reopened Orkut.com and is asking people to sign a petition supporting a new social network built around real people, communities, and genuine connection instead of endless engagement loops.

TechCrunch reports that the original Orkut founder is actively testing demand for a comeback, although there is still no launch date and no guarantee the old network returns in its original form.

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

The pitch is simple: less algorithm, more people

On the revived site, Büyükkökten argues that social media spent two decades optimizing for attention instead of connection. His new pitch is almost the opposite: verified humans, real communities, and AI used to help people connect rather than replace them.

That idea lands at an interesting moment. BitcoinVersus has recently covered how OpenAI and Meta are expanding their footprint across the internet’s naming system, while Cloudflare is giving publishers more control over how AI crawlers use the open web. The internet is getting more automated at the exact moment some users are asking for something that feels more human.

Why people still remember it

Orkut launched inside Google in 2004 and became especially popular in Brazil and India before Facebook took over the social-networking market. Google shut the service down in 2014.

What people remember is not advanced technology. It is the social texture: communities, scraps, testimonials, visible profile visits, and the feeling that the person on the other side was probably an actual person.

That does not mean nostalgia is enough to beat TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, X, or Facebook. BitcoinVersus has already followed how massive today’s social platforms have become. A revived Orkut would need a genuinely different product, not just a pink logo and memories.

SmartNews takeaway

Orkut is not officially back yet. But the founder is back, the website is active, and the petition is real. If enough people sign, one of the internet’s earliest big social networks may get a second life built around a very 2026 idea: prove there is a human on the other side.

BitcoinVersus.Tech Editor’s Note: Orkut.com is currently collecting support for a new network. No public launch date has been announced.

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