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Koo, India’s free-speech Twitter alternative

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Re: Koo, India’s free-speech Twitter alternative

#3
The site's creation is understandable when considering how destabilizing social media has been. Just look at how the US has changed from 2008 to now. Here's a particularly relevant quote from the article:

"Every social media [platform] has to be responsible, to a certain extent, of what they bring into a country because it defines a lot of things in the country, like youth culture or how citizens of a country react to a situation.

"When a company is registered elsewhere and doesn’t take into consideration the nuances of the local culture, I think it can be dangerous. Indian entrepreneurs building for Indian cultural nuances is better than somebody who doesn’t understand the cultural nuances trying to build for India."

Re: Koo, India’s free-speech Twitter alternative

#4
I grew up in India - nationalism is definitely a growing concern for the country IMO, more so than can be expressed online by articles such as this. And nationalism definitely has a huge overlap with hinduism in the country.

Creating siloed media platforms that lets such ideas fester and grow is probably the worst thing that can happen.

The thing is that even gently challenging these ideas (with some folks I know back home) leads to an aggressive defence strategy that is pretty much focused on some variation of nonsense arguments rooted in 'talking points' being pushed by nationalists that aren't rooted in any fact.

Some variations I've experienced: it's foreigners trying to stir the pot, farmer protests have nothing to do with farmers but it's to do with destroy India's unity by fringe groups, etc. On Greta/other celebrities shining light on farmer protests: they're being paid money by third parties to meddle in local politics, etc.

Other scary things I've seen are pretty much labelling anyone that disagrees with you as the other (this includes the opposition party Indian National Congress, etc.) and instead of listening to valid points being brought up, there's this Meme-fication of the person/party that's worse than trolling and borders on attacking every trivial detail from the person's life.

Re: Koo, India’s free-speech Twitter alternative

#5
post #4

I grew up in India - nationalism is definitely a growing concern for the country IMO, more so than can be expressed online by articles such as this. And nationalism definitely has a huge overlap with hinduism in the country. Creating siloed media platforms that lets such ideas fester and grow is probably the worst thing that can happen. The thing is that even gently challenging these ideas (with some folks I know bac…

Why does 'nationalism' concern you. Is 'nationalism' always or almost always negative?

Re: Koo, India’s free-speech Twitter alternative

#9
This resonated with me:

>What we are seeing is that India wants to be more self-reliant. India includes everybody. Our app doesn’t understand “left” or “right.” I don’t understand “left” or “right.” I’m an entrepreneur; I’m extremely apolitical. And I’m all for the development of the country. If Koo as a statement can make us self-reliant on our own social networks and technology, then we should be cheering for it. We shouldn’t unnecessarily politicize it.

Re: Koo, India’s free-speech Twitter alternative

#10
post #5
post #4

I grew up in India - nationalism is definitely a growing concern for the country IMO, more so than can be expressed online by articles such as this. And nationalism definitely has a huge overlap with hinduism in the country. Creating siloed media platforms that lets such ideas fester and grow is probably the worst thing that can happen. The thing is that even gently challenging these ideas (with some folks I know bac…

Why does 'nationalism' concern you. Is 'nationalism' always or almost always negative?

Nationalism is always negative to me because I define it as blind allegiance to a tribe who you don't hold accountable.
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