New Delhi: Compliance and neutrality. That’s what Koo hopes to use to uncrown Twitter as India’s most used microblogging platform.
As Koo, the desi microblogging platform that Indian actor Kangana Raut took to when her account was permanently suspended in May last year, looks to rise to the top, it wants to do things differently compared to how global tech firms like Twitter operate in India.
For instance, while Twitter sues the government over orders to take down content, Koo complies with all such take-down orders, its co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Aprameya Radhakrishna told ThePrint in an interview on 17 August.
But what Koo prides itself most on is its inclusivity: While Twitter is largely used in India by the English-speaking crowd, Koo is “peopled” by users who communicate in Indian languages like Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu, says Radhakrishna.
“In India, we are larger than Twitter in terms of the non-English user base” Radhakrishna had said in May.
Koo’s yellow bird may be lesser known than Twitter’s blue one but Radhakrishna says that since its launch in March 2020, it has been downloaded 45 million times, has 10 million active users a month, and over 7,000 “eminent profiles” — Koo’s version of a Twitter verification badge given to prominent accounts.
While Twitter’s verification icon is a white tick inside a blue circular badge, Koo’s ‘eminence icon’ is a white tick inside a yellow badge shaped like a shield.
The platform also avoids permanent bans, such as Twitter’s suspension of US President Donald Trump’s and Ranaut’s accounts.
Radhakrishna said at Koo, they avoid treating someone as a criminal “forever”. It’s meant to be an “inclusive microblogging platform”, he said.
“Everybody has a voice in India. But unfortunately, everybody’s voice is not on the open Internet. A lot of people who use WhatsApp [find that] their voices are stuck in WhatsApp groups which are private, right?” he told ThePrint.
“English-focused” microblogging sites — such as Twitter — have “only 1 per cent of India talking to each other”.
“So what we are trying to do is get the 99 per cent of India to be able to express themselves on the open internet,” Radhakrishna said.
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A meeting point for the similarly interested
Radhakrishna sees Koo as a place where people could meet those with similar interests, and that too in “Indian languages”.
“A Kannada-speaking cricket lover meeting another Kannada-speaking cricket lover only happens on Koo,” he told ThePrint. “Famous cricketers, for example, Virat Kohli talking in Hindi, happens only on Koo.”
But a scroll through Kohli’s Twitter and Koo accounts shows that he shares the same content — usually product endorsements and pictures from the cricket pitch or training sessions — both in Hindi and English.
When asked about the disagreements global firms have with governments around the world about complying with rules and orders, Radhakrishna said: “Respect for how the offline world functions in a country is very important, according to us. Not being able to follow [local laws] is what is leading to a lot of friction in the way global tech operates”.
“Global tech approaches every country with a very simple narrative. It basically says your country [but] my rules. What we have kind of done is change that a bit by saying your country, your rules,” Radhakrishna said.
Why? “The country’s citizens have elected a representative, a leader, who will take calls on their behalf. Finally, it boils down to what the local government puts down as rules and regulations for any company to comply with,” he said. “Now, to say that a privately held for-profit organisation cares more about India’s citizens than the government that’s been elected by them is slightly wrong.”
All a private company cares about is how to increase value for their shareholders, even beyond the “definition of freedom of speech or anything else”, Radhakrishna said.
“Inconsistency in behavior by global tech platforms has actually led us to believe that that’s true. Banning some people, and not banning certain others, for the same kind of behavior, depending on what the platform feels is right or wrong is wrong behavior anyway,” he said. “So, if there is an entity to trust for the citizens of a country, [it is] their own government, [which] is better than a privately held for-profit organisation.”
Permanent bans and keeping it neutral
Koo, said Radhakrishna, allies with local laws to simplify its content take-down decisions.
“Our idea is to keep being as neutral, as non-judgmental, and as non-interfering as possible,” he said.
When Koo receives an official takedown request from the government, it complies but also informs its user of “the exact reason why the content has been taken down”. The user can then follow up with the appropriate authority, he said.
Koo, said Radhakrishna, is “actually behaving like a platform rather than taking a judgement call” in the truest sense of an intermediary platform — that is, a platform that only hosts content on behalf of someone else.
Koo also avoids permanent bans. Said Radhakrishna: “All decisions on content are taken at a post level, we don’t have an account level banning policy”.
There are, of course, exceptions — such as repeated pornographic and hate speech posts.
“But we deal with everything at a post level, which means you will never be blocked from talking to your audience, and your followers altogether. If you made a mistake in one of your posts, that will be brought to your notice. Action will be taken on that post. Treating you as a criminal forever is something that we will avoid as a platform,” he said.
The larger vision, Radhakrishna said, is to make Koo the “default microblogging app of India”.
“We will be one of the first countries to become digitally independent for thoughts and opinions on the internet which is very important. You look at the Russia-Ukraine War. Russia has been plugged out of various things internationally,” he said.
It’s important to be digitally independent to avoid that kind of ostracism so that “disagreeing with somebody’s opinion shouldn’t lead to disruption in digital life for your citizens”, he said.
“I think we [Koo] are heading in the right direction. We will enable this power of becoming digitally independent for every other country that’s looking for a solution like this,” Radhakrishna said.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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