Koo Attempts To Make Social Media Safer And To Curb Misuse

For the first time ever, a social media platform is collaborating with the Central Institute for Indian Languages (CIIL) to strengthen content moderation across languages.

Koo App

Backed by internet connectivity and robust infrastructure, the number of social media users in India is growing at a rapid pace. Today, India boasts nearly 450 million social media users, which includes digital natives, and also those exploring the medium for the first time and in a language of their choice. 

A large part of the population is just beginning to express themselves on the internet, and this calls for the need to guide them in understanding the medium - and in making social media a safe place for users to come, create and consume the right kind of content. Bombinate Technologies Pvt.Ltd., the holding company of India’s multi-lingual micro-blogging platform - Koo, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL).

This collaboration will work towards limiting online abuse, bullying and the use of offensive and obscene phrases across Indian languages, while simultaneously building a transparent and conducive ecosystem. CIIL - which was established by the Government of India - will work jointly with the Koo App to strengthen its content moderation policies and help users stay safe and secure online. CIIL will create a corpus of expressions considered offensive or sensitive across 22 official Indian languages. In turn, the Koo App will share relevant data to create the corpus and provide technological support to build interfaces that will host the corpus for public access. This is a long-term collaboration for promoting responsible online behavior, and a first-of-its-kind initiative in the Indian social media ecosystem. 

As an inclusive platform for self-expression, the Koo App currently offers its innovative features across 10 Indian languages. Through this collaboration, the Koo App will develop a deep and nuanced understanding of the logic, grammar and context of words that are used in native languages, especially on social media; while parallelly helping identify offensive terms and phrases that can lead to discord and online bullying. This will enhance the content moderation practice at the micro-blogging platform, and assist users to curate more engaging content in their respective languages; thereby consolidating Koo’s position as India’s leading multi-language social media platform.