Koo is an Indian developed alternative to the highly popular social media platform Twitter. It was developed to promote the Atma Nirbhar Bharat campaign. Since its launch, it has reached over 1 million downloads on the Google Play Store. Koo app is entirely based in India, with investors and founders also from India.

1. Everything you need to know
about the Koo app
Koo is an Indian developed alternative to the highly popular social media platform Twitter. It
was developed to promote the Atma Nirbhar Bharat campaign.
Since its launch, it has reached over 1 million downloads on the Google Play Store.
Koo app is entirely based in India, with investors and founders also from India.
Highlights
● It is a social media platform, which allows you to share your views, photos, videos
and follow other users on the platform.
● The Koo app also won the Indian government’s Atma Nirbhar App Innovation
Challenge.
● The app is supported on both Android and iOS platforms.
Overview
Koo app was launched in early 2020. It was founded by two entrepreneurs, Aprameya
Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidwatka.
It is owned by the parent company Bombinate Technologies Pvt. Ltd., which is also
Indian-based.
Bombinate Technologies is the same company that also developed the Indian version of
Quora called Vokal.
One of its founders, Aprameya Radhakrishna, also founded an online cab booking service
called TaxiForSure. But it was subsequently sold to Ola Cabs.
The Koo App
Koo is a very similar app to Twitter, which allows you to share posts, follow people, share
videos and pictures and many other features like Twitter.
The logo of Twitter which has a "blue bird" inspired the logo of the Koo app.
It supports English with many local Indian languages like Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi,
Bengali, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese and Gujarati.
How did the Koo app come into the limelight?
Well, there are many reasons for the popularity of the app.

2. First reason,
The Koo app gained tremendous support from the IT ministries, because of the ongoing
tussle between the Indian Government and Twitter.
This was because tweet accounts related to farmers' protests were blocked by Twitter. This
action received a huge backlash and criticism.
Twitter played a major role in the ongoing farmer’s protest.
Second reason,
They developed the app to promote the Atma Nirbhar campaign. Eventually, the Koo app
won the Atma Nirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge.
This made it to the bold headlines.
It gained a positive response, because of the ongoing clash with China, for privacy and
security reasons.
The Government of India banned all the apps which had Chinese connections and promoted
the Atma Nirbhar campaign.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also mentioned the app in his Mann Ki Baat address.
Third reason,
Many prominent faces like Commerce Minister- Piyush Goyal; Law and IT Minister- Ravi
Shankar Prasad; Members of Parliament- Tejaswi Surya and Shobha Karandlaje; Karnataka
Chief Minister- BS Yeddyurappa; Former Cricketers- Javagal Srinath and Anil Kumble also
joined the app and showed their support.
Union IT Ministry, India Post and Niti Ayog also have their accounts on the Koo app.
This helped in the app's promotion, and people started following it.
Twitter vs. Koo app
Koo is the Indian version/replacement of Twitter. And it is gaining success steadily.
In contrast, the Prime Minister and his cabinet ministers still use Twitter to address the
public.
Koo has nearly 6 million users, while Twitter has 17.5 million users.
● One of the most visible differences is the language support. Koo has support for
various Indian languages while Twitter does not. This ensures that every Indian can
use and understand this app easily.
● With many similarities and fewer differences, the app claims that they designed it
with new features.
● The app is regulated under section 43A of the IT Act to protect the privacy of Indians.
On the Koo app, the information users themselves share is filled in on the public profile page.
And only that information is public.

3. Apart from that, Twitter highlighted that the suspended accounts will continue to be seen
outside of India. This action doesn’t strictly comply with Indian law.
Seeing the current growth pace and situation in the country, we expect that the Koo app will
get equally matured in 2-3 years, until and unless the government directory withdraws from
Twitter.
Conclusion
The Koo app has been the talk of the town and created a buzz, as a replacement for Twitter.
But the competition wasn’t over. Another contender “Tooter” also gained popularity as a
locally developed or “Swadeshi” app.
But it didn’t manage to retain its identity for long.
With Koo coming into the limelight, claims suggested that the Chinese also funded the app.
And it breaches the privacy policy by leaking personal data.
This led to degradation in users of the Koo app and people started switching back to Twitter.
To address the same, Koo stepped forward and said that all the user’s information is safe. The
app has its data on associated servers outside India.
According to some reports by French Security Research, Koo isn’t safe. They alleged it to
leak a lot of sensitive information about the users. The information primarily includes contact
numbers, email addresses and DOBs.
In my opinion,
I think it isn’t a great time to switch to other replacement options. Until and unless we have a
full-proof alternative, it would be a foolish decision.
Many of the eminent personalities, ministries, organizations and users, rely on Twitter for
official communication.
Banning the app would be more like banning yourself from the community.
The quest for newer alternatives will always be there and only time will talk about the future
of the Koo app.