Twitter bans one of Koo’s handles, co-founder questions Musk’s ‘free speech’ stand

The banned handle was used to tweet updates about its process of designating user accounts of eminence with a yellow verification badge, similar to Twitter’s blue verification badge.

Image credit: Koo

New Delhi: Twitter has banned an account of its Indian microblogging rival Koo, which used to promote its services on the platform.

Asking Twitter CEO Elon Musk if this is what “free speech” means, Mayank Bidawatka, co-founder of the homegrown microblogging platform questioned the purpose behind the suspension.

“One of the Koo Twitter handle just got banned. For what?! Because we compete with Twitter? So? Mastodon [another rival social media platform] also got blocked today. How is this free speech and what world are we living in?,” Bidawatka wrote in a now-deleted tweet on 16 December.

Screenshot of Mayank Bidawatka’s tweet

The link to Bidawatka’s tweet and a screenshot of the tweet was sent to ThePrint by a source who did not want to be identified.

Confirming the ban, an executive of the Indian microblogging site said the company was checking the reason for the suspension.

The banned handle, Koo Eminence, was used to tweet updates about its process of designating user accounts of eminence with a yellow verification badge, similar to Twitter’s blue verification badge. Twitter users can communicate with Koo via that account if they want to have an ’eminence verification’ on Koo.

Koo’s other accounts on Twitter are still accessible.

According to a recent NBC news report, Twitter had permanently suspended the accounts of several reporters who were covering Musk and the company.

“The accounts of Ryan Mac of The New York Times, Donie O’Sullivan of CNN, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, Matt Binder of Mashable, Micah Lee of The Intercept, Steve Herman of Voice of America and independent journalists Aaron Rupar, Keith Olbermann and Tony Webster had all been suspended as of Thursday evening,” the report stated.

In response, the Twitter CEO had said that the “suspensions were related to new rules banning private jet trackers.”

“If anyone posted real-time locations & addresses of NYT reporters, FBI would be investigating, there’d be hearings on Capitol Hill & Biden would give speeches about end of democracy!,” Musk wrote on his handle Friday.

If anyone posted real-time locations & addresses of NYT reporters, FBI would be investigating, there’d be hearings on Capitol Hill & Biden would give speeches about end of democracy!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022