Twitter threatened by Indian Koo

Donald Trump’s supporters would no doubt spot an irony if Twitter was banned for encouraging mass protests in the same way the former president was thrown out by the social media service for tweets that helped incite the Capitol Hill coup attempt.

There are definite signs that the Indian government is prepared to take drastic action against Twitter, despite its new attempt to defuse days of mounting tension with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

Benjamin Parkin and Amy Kazmin report the service has taken action on more than 500 accounts that had been flagged by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Some have been blocked in India but will remain available outside the country, while others have been permanently suspended.

The government had demanded that Twitter block hundreds of accounts tweeting about farmers’ protests against contentious new agricultural reforms. The ruling BJP and its supporters have also begun actively promoting Koo, an Indian microblogging site, as a patriotic alternative to Twitter. Launched last year, Koo allows messaging in eight Indian languages.

“Hello folks, I am on Koo now, in case Twitter is shut in India for flouting our laws,” read a tweet on Tuesday from Smita Barooah, who helped co-ordinate the BJP’s social media campaigns in previous general elections.

Any Indian rejection of Twitter would hit user growth, which fell short of Wall Street expectations when the company reported on Tuesday. Average monetisable daily active users reached 192m, a 27 per cent increase year-on-year but short of analyst forecasts for 194m.

While acknowledging that Twitter would faced challenging comparisons this year with 2020’s pandemic surge in users, chief executive Jack Dorsey told analysts it would survive both Covid and the loss of one much-followed user in Trump. “We are a platform that is obviously much larger than any one topic, or any one account,” he said.

The Internet of (Five) Things

1. Apple’s secret screens
Apple is working on the latest componentry for tiny screens in a Taiwanese lab with the chipmaker TSMC, according to Nikkei Asia and reported in this week’s #techAsia newsletter. It’s intended for future Augmented Reality glasses.

2. Wall St wants Biden to limit tech rivals
Bank lobbyists and executives want to persuade the new Biden administration that tech giants such as Facebook and Google, as well as upstart fintechs, should not be allowed to provide services that compete with banks without being subject to the same rules. They are taking comfort from tech replacing banking as the prime villain in politicians’ anti-business rhetoric. “Compare [our political position] to the tech industry,” said one. “They have supplanted the evil bankers.”

3. Thrasio thrashes out another funding round
Thrasio, a Boston-based ecommerce group, has raised $750m, the biggest investment yet in the increasingly frenzied industry for rolling up small merchants who sell through Amazon. The latest round values Thrasio at more than $6bn.

Daily newsletter

#techFT brings you news, comment and analysis on the big companies, technologies and issues shaping this fastest moving of sectors from specialists based around the world. Click here to get #techFT in your inbox.

Read More:  UK’s Crown Prosecution Service braces for rise in cryptocurrency scams

4. Huawei takes FCC to court
Huawei has asked a US court to overturn a Federal Communications Commission ruling that the Chinese telecoms equipment maker poses a security threat to the country because of alleged ties to the Chinese military. Huawei argued in a filing that the FCC designation violated the US constitution.

5. Lyft needs rider lift
Uber’s quarterly earnings come after the market close, but its US rival Lyft reported on Tuesday that it expected “a strong rebound in demand”. Lex says it needs one, with full-year net losses of $1.8bn reported on $2.4bn of sales.

Tech tools — Google’s Green Room, JLab mikes

We’re being encouraged to get more professional on camera as video conferencing services introduce new features. Google Meet is introducing a pre-call Green Room tool that allows you to check your sound and video and adjust your settings more easily. If you want to improve your sound, JLab Audio has just introduced three new microphones, the Talk Go, Talk and Talk Pro, ranging from $49 (£49) to $149 (£149).