Amid war of words, Koo is India's answer to Twitter

As the Indian government and social media giant Twitter locked horns with each other over the former ordered Twitter to remove more than 1,100 accounts and posts which it says are spreading misinformation about widespread protests by farmers against new agricultural laws, many Indian politicians and users are joining the indigenous Twitter-like social media platform Koo launched last year.

Koo had won the Aatmanirbhar App challenge. The app was developed by Aparameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka. The app is available in several languages, including Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Odiya and Assamese.

#kooapp was the top Twitter trend in India on Wednesday with nearly 21,000 posts, followed by #BanTwitter.

Railways Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday (February 9) had posted on Twitter that he is now using Koo. Other Union ministers including Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani and others are also now on Koo.

This development comes in the backdrop of the government's February 4  order asking Twitter to take down 1,178 accounts with links to Pakistan and Khalistan supporters that were spreading misinformation and provocative content related to farmers' protest.

The government also noted that while former US President Donald Trump's Twitter account was suspended following the Capitol Hill violence, the Red Fort violence on January 26 (Republic Day) was considered freedom of expression by the micro-blogging site.

Despite repeated notices from the government, Twitter didn't take a firm decision on this issue.