While the makers of Tooter are hoping that a home-grown social network can take off, that bird has long flown
This is not the first time a new social network has popped up to take on the might of Twitter. A few months ago another network called Mastodon created a buzz and while many, particularly those of a certain liberal persuasion, populated the site, sadly its fate wasn’t very different from the animal it was named after. The latest site to float up on your device is called Tooter, which is really just a rebadged version of the social network called Gab in the United States (US). While its makers claim it to be Indian or swadeshi, it turned out that even the “Terms Of Service” were copied almost verbatim from the American service. Without disparaging the efforts of those trying to create a new service, it would be good if Indian software engineers could create a new social network, one that integrates the best of the others and adds features, rather than blithely copying another product. On this front, India would be well served to learn from the Chinese internet experience.
That said, can Twitter or Facebook ever be replaced? There is an argument that says yes, given their monolithic power now as opinion makers themselves. Twitter has, in particular, played a dubious role in restricting access to certain information during the US election, or so the losing candidate, President Donald Trump, alleges. Then again, one could argue that without Twitter, Trump’s popularity would never have soared. It is important that services like Facebook and Twitter, which are transnational, should come under some sort of regulatory mechanism and should not become some extra-constitutional force in nations like India. That said, the arguments for free speech and misinformation make for a dubious grey area and territories have to be clearly demarcated by the Government of the day. Also, a lot of the lamenting about Twitter being right or wrong for one side or another disguises the fact that it is what it is because of such issues and cannot be equal to the electorate. Much of what goes on in social media is happening at a level that the elite, on either side, have little or no idea about, on messaging applications like WhatsApp. Yes, social networks should be subjected to Indian regulations and it may not be a bad idea to create an Indian social network, but clearly, Tooter, like Mastodon, isn’t the answer.
