Over the last year, millions of Internet users have gravitated to Orkut, a Web site created and run by Google that permits people, by invitation only, to join any of a long list of online communities.
Communities have been created around a shared interest in photography, Miles Davis's music and travel to offbeat places. A small minority, however, advance a hatred for Jews, blacks or gays, including a "Death to the Jews" site and a site called "Death to Blacks."
By now no one should be surprised that people use the Internet to spread repugnant views about race, religion or sexuality. But what is different about Orkut, online specialists say, is that the hate-filled dialogues are taking place inside a members-only social network site that - at least in theory - strictly forbids this kind of conduct in its user's agreement.
The hatemongering is fast becoming an embarrassment for Google, the world's most popular search engine, particularly because the company has adopted "don't be evil" as its motto. The potential for tarnishing Google's gold-plated brand name also underscores the risks the company faces as it expands into new Internet businesses in which it has less experience.
"Given the prestige and familiarity of Google, I think this is an important development, if not quite radically new," said Cass R. Sunstein, a professor of law at the University of Chicago and author of the book "Republic.com," which concludes that the Internet inadvertently helps foster extreme viewpoints.
For Google, the trouble on Orkut - which is still in beta, or test, form - could easily escalate. A prosecutor in Brazil, where the service is especially popular, has already initiated an investigation into some of the more virulent Orkut sites.
For the moment, Google is not saying much about the issue. In response to a request for comment, a Google spokeswoman, Eileen Rodriguez, wrote in an e-mail message, "There are instances when orkut.com members misuse the service, but it is a very small number compared to everyone who uses it. There is a certain amount of trust we have to place in our users." Google would not pinpoint the number of people signed up for Orkut, but characterized it as "millions."
Orkut members are required to follow the company's "terms of service and community standards," Ms. Rodriguez wrote, which state that "an account cannot upload, transmit or contain material that is hateful or offensive based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender or sexual orientation."
When users "don't follow these terms and we are made aware of an issue, we take the necessary steps, which may include removing the content," she said. Google would not say if it had ever taken such action.
Internet law and custom generally exempt Internet service providers from responsibility for the behavior of their users. But when it comes to social networking sites like Orkut that invite users to seek out potential business contacts, dates or like-minded souls through links with friends and friends of friends, the responsibilities of the Internet host are more ambiguous.
"When these new tools are introduced to the social world, the social norms, like manners and etiquette, and basic questions of who's responsible for what, get all scrambled," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. "What we're seeing is the havoc that the Internet wreaked on plenty of business is now playing out in the social world."
Despite the company's stated policies, Orkut users - who are allowed to participate only if invited by a current member - can join the 2,300 people who already belong to an "I Hate Queens, Faggots and Gays" group, created in August by a Brazilian Orkut member. When setting up the community, the group's founder described it as a forum for Portuguese-speaking people to "show your indignation and make jokes" about a "type of person" who "is gaining in society." Because access to the Orkut site requires membership, general Internet users cannot stumble accidentally onto these groups.
Orkut members can also sign up to join a myriad of communities dedicated to despising people of color, including one in English that advocates the founder's position of death to all black people.
The founder of that group, Kiarash Poursaleh, who described himself in his profile as an 18-year-old living in Tehran, also listed "Mein Kampf" by Hitler as a favorite book, named "shooting" as his favorite sport and described his humor as "friendly." All members create a personal profile and can add their own communities to the Orkut site.
Mr. Poursaleh has joined dozens of other English-language Orkut communities, including the "Adolf Hitler SS Army Fan Club" and an "anti-Jewry" community, as well as a group for fans of the television show "Friends."
Mr. Poursaleh, who did not respond to an e-mail request for an interview, is also a member of "Anti-Arab Iranians," a community with the motto, "We Hate Arabs!!! Kill Them All!"
Other social networking sites have confronted similar issues of hatemongering, but the problem is more pronounced at Orkut because the service encourages people to create and participate in online communities of like-minded individuals. Community groups help to distinguish Orkut from its competitors, like Friendster, the first widely popular social networking site.
Tribe Networks is another social networking site that encourages users to create communities of shared interest. "Mainly we're reactive, rather than proactive, when it comes to these hate sites," said Mark J. Pincus, the chief executive of Tribe, based in San Francisco. "But we have a full-time staffer who looks for these kinds of things and deals with complaints when they come up."
Plugging the word "hate" into the site's search engine delivered a listing of more than 200 "tribes," but they tended to be more humorous and offbeat. Users have created groups for those who hate "the n-word," online dating, dogs, ranch dressing or any of a random list of B-list celebrities (Ryan Seacrest, Brittany Murphy, Carrot Top).
Though Orkut began life a year ago as a venue for Silicon Valley's digerati, now nearly two-thirds of registered users are from Brazil. Google said one explanation for this seemingly inexplicable phenomenon was that Brazilians are quick to adopt new technologies.
In late January, Christiano Jorge Santos, a state prosecutor in São Paulo, began a criminal investigation of some of the hate communities hosted by Orkut. The impetus was the cyberassault of a 13-year-old black child who lives in São Paulo. Those behind a Portuguese language community called "Antiheroes" posted a copy of the child's picture at the site, without his knowledge, and then invited visitors to "unload all your fury on this poor, innocent little black kid. Click on him and get revenge."
Such an action is clearly criminal under Brazilian law, Mr. Santos said. "That's racism, and in Brazil racism is a crime," he said.
Under Brazilian law, it is a crime to practice, induce or incite discrimination or prejudice on the grounds of race, color, ethnicity, religion or national origin. If convicted, offenders could serve two to five years in prison, in addition to paying a sizable fine.
"The U.S. is pretty unusual providing the broad protection we do to hate speech," said Professor Sunstein. In "South America, Europe - Google could have problems with many other jurisdictions."
Mr. Santos, the author of a book on hate crimes in Brazil, is targeting "all the communities that use racist and discriminatory terms on the site www.orkut.com," according to documents he filed in court. Because Brazilian law does not include discrimination based on sexuality in its criminal code, those behind sites like "I Hate Transvestites" would not face criminal charges.
Among the Orkut groups that Mr. Santos has focused on is a "Death to Blacks" site, written in Portuguese. That group's founder, Alex Pazzo, also created the "Death to the Jews" group, also written in Portuguese. (Mr. Pazzo did not respond to an e-mail message, sent through the Orkut system, seeking comment.)
It is also unlikely that Google could be held criminally responsible in a Brazilian court, Mr. Santos said, since he would have to prove that the company was intentionally complicit in disseminating racist materials. Nevertheless, Google could be sued for damages in a Brazilian civil court, he said, because of a lack of precautionary measures against racist crimes.
Other Portuguese-language Orkut groups include "I Hate Argentines," "I Hate Transvestites" and "I Hate the Universal Church," which refers to the evangelical church popular among Brazil's poor. The majority of the Orkut hate sites seem to be written in Portuguese, but many are written in English as well.
For instance, an English-language "Anti-Jews" site, created in November, lists Schenectady, N.Y., as its home base. The community logo is a caricature of a man with a Star of David tattooed on his forehead. The site was created by Timothy Schultz, an Orkut member who says in his profile that he was born in Germany but now lives in the United States. He describes his mother as "Persian," but assures those reading his Orkut profile that both parents are "Aryan."
The group's mission statement declares that it matters not whether members are Christian, Muslim or Buddhist, "the fact is we are all angry about what they have done and what they are doing to human beings all around the world." While the group has only 98 members, they come from a variety of places around the globe, like Iran, Korea and Marblehead, Mass.
In one of the oddities of an online universe in which software, not a human brain, is behind a service, Orkut lists a "Jesus Christ" site ("for people who love Jesus") as a "related community" to "Anti-Jews."
At the Anti-Jews site, when a woman going by the screen name Wasay 666 said that she was against the murder of Jews, several posters scoffed at her view.
What concerns Professor Sunstein is that "if you get like-minded people together around a hatred of Jews, or blacks, or whatever, they end up being more hateful."