Twitter suspends Indian microblogging site Koo's account, bans Mastodon

Microblogging site Twitter has suspended the account of Indian microblogging platform Koo.

The Twitter handle @kooeminence was suspended on Friday, a development that came in the wake of billionaire Elon Musk-owned Twitter suspending the accounts of several prominent global journalists, including those from the New York Times, CNN and Washington Post.

Taking to Twitter, Mayank Bidawatka, co-founder of the homegrown microblogging platform said, "I forgot. There's more! - Banning Mastodon account. - Not allowing mastodon links saying it's unsafe. - Banning Koo's eminence handle. I mean seriously. How much more control does the guy need?"

Mastodon is the social media rival of Twitter.

In a series of tweets, Bidawatka questioned the rationale behind suspending the @kooeminence account, which has been set up only a few days ago for queries posed by celebrities and VIPs wanting to use the Indian social media platform.

"1. Posting publicly available info isn't doxxing. Why shoot the messenger? 2. Journalists that posted links did nothing wrong. Posting a link to publicly available info isn't doxxing the way posting a link to an online article isn't plagiarism," Koo co-founder Bidawtka said.

 

"3. Leaving spaces without answering journalists is bad. 4. Creating policies out of thin air to suit yourself is worse. 5. Changing your stance every other day is inconsistent. 6. Posting a video of an unknown car on Twitter with the car plate showing - how's that allowed?" he added. The Koo cofounder said that Twitter killed spaces overnight to control conversations.

"He further added that there are other things that Twitter had done in the past week which is not a democracy. One needs to speak up," he said.

While promoting Koo, Bidawatka said that the home-grown microblogging platform is the best alternative to Twitter.

"This place is what it is because of you and millions of other users like us. Let's not fuel this guy's ego," he added.

Bidawatka also said, "And guess what! Suddenly. Almost suddenly #ElonIsDestroyingTwitter has been removed from the trending section. Twitter is a publisher. Not a platform anymore!"

This comes a day after Twitter suspended the accounts of roughly half a dozen prominent journalists, who have been covering the social media site and Musk, citing they had violated rules against "doxxing."

The suspended accounts include those of Ryan Mac of The New York Times, Donie O'Sullivan of CNN, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, Matt Binder of Mashable, Micah Lee of The Intercept, political journalist Keith Olbermann, Aaron Rupar and Tony Webster, both independent journalists, the New York Times reported.

The social media platform on Thursday (local time) displayed "account suspended" notices on the accounts of these journalists.

Twitter also updated its policy update on Thursday (local time) prohibiting the sharing of "live location information, including information shared on Twitter directly or links to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes."

Meanwhile, the United Nations and the European Union has threatened to sanction Musk on the actions taken by Twitter.