Indian microblogging site Koo is already in Nigeria, and is now looking to expand there to fill a void that has been created by the government suspending Twitter indefinitely.
Twitter had taken down a tweet of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s as it was allegedly in violation of the company’s abusive behaviour policy.
That reportedly riled the Nigerian authorities, and they hit back with the ban citing “the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence”.
Sensing an opportunity, Koo co-founder and CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna tweeted, “Koo is available in Nigeria. We’re thinking of enabling the local languages there too. What say?”
He also posted screenshots of the countries Koo is available in like Mynamar, Nambia, Nepal, Senegal, Rwanda, Philippines, Peru, Paraguay, etc. There was also a screenshot of the languages spoken in Nigeria.
ET Now reached out to the Koo co-founder on the phone and he said, “Koo started in India with the aim to give a voice to the non-English population of the country. There are many more countries across the world whose populations would like to express themselves in local languages and countries where existing options for micro-blogging do not operate as per local laws. Koo will fill that gap.”
Koo in the past has spoken about social media platforms needing to be enablers and not judges of content from their own lens and point of view. It was launched last year and was even mentioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in one of his Mann Ki Baat episodes.
Koo has over 60 lakh users and had recently raised approximately $30million in a funding round led by Tiger Global.