Homegrown platform Koo gets a big boost as Indian govt takes on Twitter

Koo, India's homegrown micro-blogging platform, is getting a big push amid the stand-off between the Narendra Modi-led government and Twitter over the issue of suspension of certain accounts for their role in fuelling the on-going protests in Delhi and surrounding areas.

The platform, which has 1 million+ downloads on Google Play Store, was trending on Twitter with top politicians announcing their decision to join the platform.

The relations between the government and Twitter have deteriorated in recent times. According to media reports, the Indian government has asked Twitter to block 1,178+ accounts, however, the social media platform has not fully complied with the order by arguing that it is protecting its foundational principle of free expression.

With Twitter refusing to budge, the government through its top ministers has started pushing for the adoption of Koo app. On Tuesday, Union Minister Piyush Goyal, who holds the Commerce and Industry, Railways, Consumer Affairs, and Food & Public Distribution portfolios, took to Twitter to announce that he has joined Koo. Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan also tweeted that he has created an account on the home-grown platform.

Earlier, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had joined the platform by setting up an official account. Incidentally, the MeitY had threatened to take punitive action against Twitter for failing to follow its order about the blocking of 257 URLs and 1 Hashtag.

Taking a cue, many government departments and officials have also joined the platform. Apart from MeitY, government departments like MyGov, Digital India, India Post, National Informatics Centre (NIC), National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), Common Services Center, UMANG app, Digi Locker, National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) and Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) have verified accounts on the platform.

It is pertinent to note that the 10-month-old app has won the Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Award, which was instituted by the union government to identify the best Indian Apps that are being used by citizens and have the potential to scale and become world-class apps in their respective categories.

Koo also had a special mention by PM Modi in his Mann Ki Baat programme in August 2020. The platform had recently partnered with Mann Ki Baat to share people’s ideas and suggestions to PM Modi.

Among media platforms, Republic TV had recently announced its tie-up with Koo to further reach and encourage Indian audiences to express their thoughts and opinions on everyday trending news.

Co-founded by Mayank Bidawatka and Aprameya Radhakrishna, Koo has positioned itself as a platform for Indians to voice their opinion in their own mother tongue. Internet in India is predominantly English which ends up alienating a large swathe of the population who don't understand English.

Out of a population of 130 crores, just 10% of India speaks English. Koo is attempting to bring together the largest community of Indian language speakers by allowing them to participate on the internet in their mother tongue. The app supports Indian languages like Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Oriya, and Assamese.

“We believe that it is important to build social networks keeping in mind local cultural nuances. Koo being deeply focused on India will help ensure a consistent experience for all users on the platform. We are humbled and at the same time excited by the adoption and encouragement by so many noteworthy personalities and recently the entry of the topmost government offices of the country onto Koo," Koo co-founder and CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna had said recently.