In a bid to teach the US-headquartered platform Twitter a lesson, several government officials as well as supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have begun migrating from the social media giant to an India-made app called "Koo". The app, developed in Bengaluru back in 2020 is a social networking platform that allows Indians to share their thoughts, promising more visibility than Twitter.
Mayank Bidawatka, the co-founder of Koo told Sputnik that the team is working on fixing some bugs on their app.
"We have got more love and attention than we expected. We faced a heavy load on the system during certain points in the last few days and the team is working to fix it. Such teething issues are common in fast scaling start-ups and we're doing our best to address the problem", said Bidawatka.
It is noteworthy that PM Modi's supporters are ready to be patient with Koo, because Twitter has been arguing with the government of late. Narendra Modi had earlier encouraged Indians to use Koo in one of his Mann Ki Baat monthly radio talks.
Koo is still very unstable..... cannot find find people etc
— Sanjeev Sanyal (@sanjeevsanyal) February 10, 2021
Am prepared to be patient, but this needs sorting out
Koo has some extra features like,edit koo, cropping of pictures, I believe it will come up as a new revolution in Aatmnirbhar Bharat,if it works on some glitches that are there.👍
— पूनम अर्चना सिंह (@kshatriyarch) February 10, 2021
Enjoying koo’ing’ at the moment.😊
I too joined KOO yesterday . Though it's a newly minted Aap and has certain glitches ,but I welcomed it being an Indian based Aap and devoid of toxicity . I am following you in KOO and I think it would have a great future .
— Renu Sharma (@RenuSha36631550) February 9, 2021
It's time to switch to Indian Platform 'KOO'.
— Sumit Singh (@isumitsingh12) February 10, 2021
I Request @Tejasvi_Surya to come ahead & use Koo App.#AtmaNirbharBharat #kooapp
Ironically, #KooApp began to trend on Twitter after the latter published a blog post detailing the legal notices it received from the Indian government over the last ten days. Twitter's post also noted that at the request of the Indian government it has blocked over 500 accounts and is awaiting a response from the IT Ministry regarding a meeting.
#Twitter on taking action against accounts listed by Indian government alleging they spread provocative content around #farmersprotests in India.https://t.co/PRD22Pcz98 pic.twitter.com/5saf5QzU0V
— Radhika Parashar (@_RadhikaReports) February 10, 2021
#Twitter accepts receiving notices from the Indian government. pic.twitter.com/FcTwXKe4qp
— Radhika Parashar (@_RadhikaReports) February 10, 2021
India's IT Ministry has responded to Twitter's post on Koo, paving the way for speculations that the government is ready to ignore Twitter in retaliation to its blog posts and arguments.
Indian government expressed unhappiness over @TwitterSafety's blog ahead of meeting with minister @rsprasad . Interesting fact is that government decided to write it on #Koo rather than #Twitter pic.twitter.com/54NzhyONOh
— Rishikesh Kumar (@rishhikesh) February 10, 2021
Indian IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Minister of State for Ports, Shipping, and Waterways Mansukh Mandaviya have been on Koo since August 2020. This week, Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal and Madhya Pradesh state Chief Shivraj Singh Chouhan also joined Koo. In addition, the IT Ministry and the Railways Ministry have also made their debut on the Indian micro-blogging platform in the last couple of days.
BL Santhosh, the National General Secretary of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party also asked Twitter to go by the "rules of the land" reminding the platform that India is ruled by a legal framework, not corporate rules.
You state that you are platform . Then you decide what to delete & what not . You have to act acc to law of land . You can't have your own rules . The country is governed based on Constitution not some corporate rules . https://t.co/zHmdv4eC60
— B L Santhosh (@blsanthosh) February 10, 2021
