When India’s minister for commerce and industry recently urged his followers to "connect with me” on Koo, an "Indian micro-blogging platform,” he did so on Twitter. That should be a lesson to the U.S. social media giant: In its battles with India’s government and others around the world, the platform needn’t surrender its principles too easily.
The implied threat from ruling party officials to switch en masse from Twitter to India’s version of Parler is the latest salvo in a not-so-secret war. Like much else in Indian politics in recent weeks, the conflict has been sparked by the agitation against new farm laws, which continues to smolder on the outskirts of Delhi.
The government is pressing Twitter Inc. to shut down accounts which recently used a hashtag that — inaccurately and unfairly — accused India’s prime minister of committing a "farmer genocide.” The targets include a magazine that just won Harvard University’s Neiman Foundation award for journalistic integrity, as well prominent politicians and journalists.