Homegrown microblogging platform Ku has become the first major social media platform in India to introduce Aadhaar verification of its users. Koo is highlighting its ‘voluntary self-verification’ feature as a way to differentiate itself from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms by giving all users the option to verify themselves so they can have real conversations and also eliminate bots. Can do The idea is simple: Verification shouldn’t be limited to just a few influential users. Regular users should have the option to reveal that they are real human beings and not bots, regardless of their number of followers.
Apramaya Radhakrishna, Co-Founder, Ku in an exclusive conversation with News 18 Tech. K. Debashish Sarkar Shares how Koo is trying to make social media life ‘real’ and hold people accountable for what they say. Not only this, Radhakrishna believes that Ku could be India’s ‘TikTok moment’- in reference to how TikTok grew up after exiting China.
Here are excerpts from this exclusive interview Apramaya Radhakrishna, Co-Founder, Ku With News 18 Tech,
Question: What is the idea behind introducing Aadhaar-based self-verification?
Aprameya Radhakrishna: I think what’s happened with the Internet is that everyone somehow thinks that if they can’t be abused offline they can be abused online. This mindset is really wrong. For example, if you stand in front of a group of 20 people and if you say something offensive, there will be consequences, right? So you will always be respectful while communicating in front of people in an offline setup. Now, communication online should be the same. Just because it’s online doesn’t mean you can use derogatory words or that you can easily get away with what they say.
Just because it’s online doesn’t mean you can use derogatory words or that you can easily get away with what they say.
Question: What is the new ‘Voluntary Self Verification’ feature on Ku?
Aprameya Radhakrishna: At Ku now we have two types of user verification. Yellow tick highlights verified profiles of important people. This is similar to the blue tick on Twitter or other platforms. There is a new green tick feature with which all users on India’s Ku can verify themselves as a real person and not a bot using the profile.
Self-verification facility is available for Ku users who have Ku account with Indian phone number linked to valid Aadhaar number issued by UIDAI. If you do not have an Indian phone number linked to a government-issued Aadhaar number, you will not be able to voluntarily verify yourself.
The green tick feature on the Ku app will allow all users in India to verify themselves as a real person and not a bot using Ku.
Question: Will this Aadhaar-based self-verification process always be voluntary and do you think enough users will opt for it?
Aprameya Radhakrishna: The self-verification process will always be voluntary. Only users who are interested in communicating for real will opt for this. You will be surprised to know that people have been demanding such a feature for a long time. Real human users want to have a clear indicator that their social media accounts are genuine and not controlled by bots.
The self-verification process will always be voluntary.
Q: Data privacy is a concern and people may not be comfortable with Aadhaar-verification of their social media profiles. your thoughts?
Aprameya Radhakrishna: We are not storing any government ID data. All Aadhaar-verification is done by third-party and works similar to other services. We do not store any type of Aadhar card data on our servers.
Q: When an account is verified, there is always a risk of someone knocking on your door because they didn’t like what you posted on social media. Using social media responsibly is an important thing but on the other hand even criticisms cannot be appreciated. your thoughts?
Aprameya Radhakrishna: I don’t think common man, or anyone, can come to anyone’s door because of what you have said online. For someone to come to your door, you know, must be against the common law of the land. However, there are exceptions. Like, if someone is talking pro-terrorism, or someone is spreading religious hatred that causes some of the violence offline, that’s a different debate. Otherwise, you know, proper conversation is freedom of expression. And that is why we have started giving inclusive freedom of expression, everyone has to have a voice, not just English speaking people.
I don’t think common man, or anyone, can come to anyone’s door because of what you have said online.
Q: Ku is seen as a ‘desi alternative’ to Twitter. Curiously, Twitter has only 17.5 crore users in India, which is barely 1% of India’s population. So, why become a Twitter-alternative in the first place and not try to be like Facebook and Instagram which are used by most of the smartphone users in India?
Aprameya Radhakrishna: We are not the native version of Twitter. We are a global player and we are a platform that seeks to localize the needs of social media according to the norms of each country. And we’ll take it out into the world. I truly believe that Ku could be the TikTok moment for India. Tiktok took over the world by moving out of China. I think Ku from India has an opportunity to do that.
One of the key philosophy for us is to enable people to express themselves in local languages as per our local culture. We are not an English language dominated social media platform. And so, we will not reach the glass limit of 1% of India because we are beyond English. If you are very focused on English, you will only have 2% of India want to express or consume content in English. But, the fact that we are in multiple languages opens up 99% of India to us. Therefore, the opportunity for self-expression in local languages is huge.
I think we are a global company, taking localization to the world. Once we cross the Indian market, any other country that has multiple languages would love to have a solution similar to Ku. So, that’s our plan.
I truly believe that Ku could be the TikTok moment for India. Tiktok took over the world by moving out of China. I think Ku from India has an opportunity to do that.
Q: How do you plan to monetize Ku in the long run?
Aprameya Radhakrishna: Our focus is on development and right now to get a highly sticky community on the platform. So, it is too early to comment on how we will monetise. But broadly speaking, we will do some sort of inclusive advertising and also look at ways to help the creator community monetize, which in turn will help with our monetization plans as well.
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