India's microblogging platform Koo on Thursday welcomed Government of Nigeria for setting up an official account on the platform.
This development has come amid the standoff between Nigeria and Twitter, where the Nigerian government had announced an indefinite suspension of the US social media platform in that country.
Koo co-founder and CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna tweeted: “A very warm welcome to the official handle of the Government of Nigeria on @kooindia! Spreading wings beyond India now.”
Why Did Nigeria Ban Twitter?
Twitter on Wednesday, 2 June, deleted a tweet from Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari account, that was widely perceived as offensive, for violating its rules, CNN reported.
On 4 June, Nigeria's Ministry of Information and Culture stated that Twitter had been “suspended indefinitely” because of “persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria's corporate existence.”
Meanwhile, the Bengaluru-based social media platform witnessed a rise in the number of users after tensions between the Indian government and the US-based social media platform escalated over the blocking of accounts and content related to the farmers’ protests.
Several politicians, such as IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Chief Minister of Karnataka BS Yediyurappa, and Minister of Railways and Commerce Piyush Goyal, and NITI Aayog, have asked their followers to use the app.
Koo: Alternative to Twitter
Koo, which launched in 2020 and has been recognised as one of the ‘atmanirbhar’ apps by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, is being dubbed by many as an alternative to Twitter.
Built by entrepreneurs Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka, Koo is a microblogging platform through which users can communicate in their mother tongue via text, audio, and videos.
Its interface is available in eight Indian languages, namely Hindi, English, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Bangla, and Gujarati. Soon, Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi and Assamese will come up, its website says.
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