Modi Government May Prefer Koo Over Twitter for Disseminating Information

Giving a push to its Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, the union government may prefer Bharta’s homegrown app, Koo, over Twitter inputting information in the public domain through social media. Some senior ministers from the union government like Ravi Shankar Prasad, Piyush Goyal, Smriti Irani etc have already started engaging with the public through Koo.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also expected to join Koo soon.

The idea is to first put the information on Koo and only after some time put the same information on Twitter. The second idea floated is to put the information on Koo and only provide the link of that information on Twitter.

The government got serious about this after a public spat with Twitter after the violence in the national capital on January 26.

The government had asked Twitter to take down tweets and handles promoting ‘farmer genocide’ hashtag. Twitter complied with the order partially and that too very late. Twitter also restored some of the handles later, citing its commitment to freedom of speech and expression.

The government reminded Twitter about the Indian Constitution and laws and asked it to respect it. But to no avail.

Twitter is a US-based microblogging and social media app.

Koo is a Twitter rival in India. Launched in March 2020, the app won the Aatmanirbhar App Innovation Challenge.

Koo is already offering services in six languages and planning to add 12 more to its kitty. Some public sector undertakings like BSNL have already started using the app.

Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan was launched by the government in the mid of the Corona pandemic with an aim to not just become self-reliant but produce for the world.

Bharat was heavily dependent on imports to fulfil its demand for PPE kits, used in the medical field to protect the body against germs etc. But, after a push under Aatmanirbhar Abhiyan, Bharat is now a net exporter of PPE kits.