Koo is a microblogging app for social media, an alternative to twitter, and originated in India in 2020 because of differences of opinion between the Government of India and Twitter, regarding freedom of choice. According to India, some anti-India terrorist type people from countries outside of India were assuming fake name and fake origin of being from India, in their membership of twitter, and then passing subversive or treasonous plans and recruitment drives in India to foment insurgency and terrorism. The government listed out the names of these members and wanted twitter to ban their accounts. Twitter did not agree. This started a spat that is ongoing.

Meanwhile, someone in India came up with an alternative app for Indians to consider boycotting twitter and supporting home-grown platforms.

 Lot of people did join up and the platform is growing rapidly. Initially, it was presumed that the people that supported the current political party that rules India – BJP, formed the bulk of membership. This was also supported by Government officials and politicians of the party as well as the government ministers including the Prime Minister. Then came many celebrities such as actors and sportspeople, followed by journalists and self employed. In general, it was conceived to be supported by the Indian right wing, or the so called pro-Hindutwa group, or people that feel proud of their Hindu origin.

A few people from the west, wanting to stay connected with, or to gain friendship or exposure, too joined up.

It is reported that the Twitter app has over 25 million users while Koo has just under 3 million, but is rising. In some countries outside of India, Koo has apparently become highly used when their respective nations banned the use of Twitter, such as Nigeria. Some high profile ministers of the Indian Government have joined Koo and brought one million and more followers.

 Lately, perhaps the platform is losing some of its pro Hindutwa distinction and attracting some of the middle-of-the-road noncommittal folks too.

I joined up partly out of knee jerk dislike of the controlling social media and IT bigwigs of Facebook, Twitter, Google, & Microsoft, and their apparent censorship when it comes to selective subjects such as covid, Donald Trump, etc. Partly, also was the concern regarding the propaganda on Covid and my desire to tell folks in India that Hindutwa and Covid should not be mixed up. Whatever is the agenda for the Indian government regarding secularism, its politicise on covid was wholly in line with the global dictatorship of promoting a fake propaganda for reasons other than safety from any viral epidemic. 

My time with Koo has been for around six months, of which I have been reasonably active for say four months or so, meaning making on average perhaps one post per day. And in this time, my follower base has risen from zero to almost 500. In Comparison, on Twitter, I have less than 400 followers, after having been there for 12 years.

In the attached graph, one can see there were not much rise in membership in the months of March and April, when I did not make much posts. This is an indication that a post a day ensure steady rise of followers, even if your views are controversial, non-standard, or opposite to the current flow. People will follow you out of curiosity, if what you have to say, is curious.

 Why is this important. Well, I feel covid propaganda is destroying the planet as we knew it, even if the state of affairs were horrible in many counts. Therefore, resisting the ongoing destruction of the human society becomes a primary task of any thinking human, without our own capacity and inclination, and without engaging in violence.

In that, I suspect India would play a crucial role, or it has the potential to do so. That is primarily the reason for my attraction to this app – to try and make a difference, however small.

But there are subtle differences. On Twitter, I post more often and some of my followers have the same interest, such as dislike for industrial chemicals and herbicides in food, or the fact that people are having their free speech curtailed by the social media giants.

On Koo, there is no such discernible pattern. People from differing walks of life seem to follow me at random. The only noticeable pattern is – if I do not make any posts for a few days, my followers do not increase, and in fact begins to drop off. On the other hand, if I make more posts, especially on topics off the beaten path, I gain more followers. The new followers rarely, if ever, click the “like” button or share my posts. So I guess they are more curious about what I have to say, and not necessarily agreeing with me. Neither are they disagreeing enough to voice their opinion.

When it comes to covid – almost 99.99% of the people do believe covid is a deadly virus and one needs to take all precautions possible to avoid getting infected or worse. I seem to be the only voice that spends words of caution about the reality of covid and also about possible harm from vaccine, not just on health, but also economy, freedom and democracy.

Curiously, Koo App has not yet gotten around to sanctioning me or censoring my posts that often ends up criticising the Indian government, or prime minister.

So far, it has been an interesting journey and I have been making more posts on Koo than on Twitter of late.