After Mastodon, Twitter suspends an account belonging to Koo
What's the story
Twitter rivals Mastodon and Koo grew in popularity after Elon Musk acquired the microblogging platform. Twitter is now fighting back, albeit being slightly dirty at that. After suspending Mastodon's handle, the social media site has now suspended one of Koo's handles. The banned handle, @kooeminence, was created a few days ago to deal with queries from celebrities and VIPs.
Context
Why does this story matter?
Twitter under Musk attracts controversies like flies to flame. The social media site's new CEO has always been a big advocate of free speech. In fact, that's one of the things he promised to bring back when he acquired Twitter. However, since then, some of his actions have been the antithesis of free speech. The current banning spree is another one on that list.
Suspended
The handle was suspended for violating Twitter rules
Twitter suspended India-based microblogging platform Koo's one of 10-15 Twitter handles. The account @kooeminence dealt with queries from VIPs who are interested in using Koo. It is unclear why the account was banned. According to a screenshot tweeted by Aprameya Radhakrishna, co-founder, and CEO of Koo, the account was suspended for allegedly violating Twitter rules.
Twitter Post
'How is this free speech?' Koo's CEO asks Musk
One of the Koo handles on Twitter just got banned. For what?! Because we compete with Twitter? So? Mastodon also got blocked today. How is this free speech and what world are we living in?
— Aprameya 🇮🇳 (@aprameya) December 16, 2022
What's happening here @elonmusk? @katienotopoulos @tculpan @PranavDixit @aubreyhirsch pic.twitter.com/av5KkkBqsV
No tweets
The suspended account had zero tweets
Mayank Bidawatka, another co-founder of Koo, told The Economic Times that the company has no idea why the account was suspended. "We're going to write to Twitter and figure out why," he said. "@kooeminence had zero tweets. Why would it be suspended? We started it to cater to VIPs who may have queries about Koo," Bidawatka added.
Koo
Koo has over 1 crore downloads on Google Play Store
Musk's Twitter takeover led to many leaving the microblogging platform in search of alternatives. Koo and Mastodon emerged as two of the most favored options. The former has over one crore downloads on Google Play and boasts a great catalog of Indian news publications and some Indian celebrity handles. The microblogging platform's suspension follows Twitter's decision to ban Mastodon and several prominent journalists.