Popular microblogging site Twitter has just met its desi match in the form of a new social network platform called Tooter. While the platform has existed at least for a few months, news of the new desi platform reached netizens only this week.

The development comes as Twitter is getting blamed for its alleged bias against conservatives, particularly in the US, leading to the launch of counter-microblogging site Parler.

In its home page, Tooter has emphasised on the ‘Made in India’ tag and stated that it is a swadeshi social network in addition to the words Swadeshi Andolan 2.0.

Outwardly, the platform is an exact copy of Twitter. It has an identical interface including the well- known white and blue colour scheme of Twitter. The only visible difference is that the blue conch shell has replaced Twitter's popular blue bird. While it is available on android, it is yet not present on Apple app store.

The site currently has number of high profile users, with official pages of Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Rahul Gandhi, Abhishek Bachchan, and cricketers Virat Kohli and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. However, there is a doubt whether they are in fact actively using it, instead, reports suggest that Tooter may be scraping the data of prominent Indians from the Twitter.

The brain behind Tooter claims it to be a movement against the digital colonisation of the US, and anyone signs up on Twooter, they will automatically follow three profiles, i.e. R Vaidyanathan (rvaidya2000), Nanda (who is the CEO of Tooter Pvt Ltd) and a verified handle called ‘News’.

While the platform said it stands for freedom of speech, religion and the press as envisaged by the ‘First Amendment’ of US constitution, it does collects the details of the user including e-mail address, user profile etc. But it promises to not provide any user data to any person unless compelled by a court order issued by a US court, except in cases of a life-threatening emergency.

(Edited by : Jomy)