‘Tooter’, India?s answer to Twitter, makes waves online: Noted personalities join

This week, the cyberworld was abuzz with the entry of ‘Tooter’, a ‘Swadeshi’ social media platform which is called “India’s response to Twitter.”

It showed ‘verified handles’ for the likes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, actor Abhishek Bachchan, and Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli, though on the mobile site it demarcates the accounts as ‘Bots’ and appears to be re-posting Tweets that the corresponding accounts share on Twitter. However, later, it demarcated a few accounts including that of Shri Narendra Modi as ‘Bots’.

Tooter is modelled in the similar lines of ‘Twitter’ with only slight variation. It can be accessed both through app and web. “Tooter is a swadeshi social network. You can create an account on Tooter and post short messages, called Toots which can contain text, pictures, videos, etc.

“We believe that India should have a Swadeshi social network. Without one we are just a digital colony of the American Twitter India Company, no different than what we were under the British East India Company. Tooter is our Swadeshi Andolan 2.0. Join us in this Andolan. Join us!” reads Tooter official website.

You can follow and be followed by other users. When users that you follow post ‘Toots’, these are visible on your timeline. You can get notifications when you are mentioned in a Toot, you received a reply to your toot etc. You can control the events that send you notifications as well”, says app’s description on Play Store.

Like Twitter, tooter users will also have the opportunity for verified accounts. But for that you need a Tooter Pro account.