Twitter - GOI Standoff: Indian Officials Urge People Join Koo, Ironically On Twitter

Government of India and celebrities slowly moving to homegrown Koo amid the growing row.

Representative Photo

New Delhi: While the Government of India mulls over penal action against Twitter officials, some lawmakers have decided to urge its Twitter followers to join Koo which is an Indian rival to the microblogging website.  

Now, many ministries started setting up accounts on Koo, including the Ministry of Electronics and IT which later asked followers on Twitter to follow the Ministry on Koo. Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce and Industry took to Twitter asking his followers to follow him on Koo. 

 

I am now on Koo.

Connect with me on this Indian micro-blogging platform for real-time, exciting and exclusive updates.

Let us exchange our thoughts and ideas on Koo.

📱 Join me: https://t.co/zIL6YI0epM pic.twitter.com/REGioTdMfm

— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) February 9, 2021

Similarly, NITI Aayog urged people to join Koo. 

From India; For the world! 📲#NITIAayog is excited to be a part of the #KooApp🐤, a winner in the Social category of the #AatmanirbharBharat App Innovation Challenge!

Listen to interesting thoughts by nitiaayog on the app - https://t.co/W6h1tMViQ8

स्वागत नहीं करोगे हमारा?

— NITI Aayog (@NITIAayog) February 9, 2021

Kangana Ranaut too took the opportunity to announce that she will leave Twitter and join Koo. 

Your time is up @Twitter time to shift to #kooapp will inform everyone soon about my account details there.
Absolutely thrilled to experience home grown #kooapp https://t.co/Kdm0TISCmR

— Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) February 10, 2021

Twitter and Indian officials met via video conferencing on Wednesday amid the ongoing tussle between the government and the micro-blogging site on the kind of content and accounts being afloat on the social media platform. In the meeting, the Indian government reminded Twitter that though freedom of speech and expression is guaranteed as a fundamental right to its citizen it still is "not absolute and it is subject to reasonable restrictions."

Meanwhile, Koo co-founder Mayank Bidawataka told PTI, "We had two million users with about 1.5 million active users. Now, we have now crossed 3 million-mark". Koo co-founder Aprameya Radhakrishna took to Twitter to highlight the rising popularity of the platform and tweeted, "Our systems are facing more load than ever. Thank you for placing your trust in us. Our team is working on overdrive to fix it".