Indian microblogging site Koo announced on Wednesday, April 6, 2022, “voluntary self-verification” for users on its platform, allowing users to self-verify their accounts using government-approved IDs.
The platform, which competes with Twitter, said the move empowers users to prove the authenticity of their accounts on the platform, giving credibility to the thoughts and opinions they share.
“Voluntary self-verification promotes the visibility of real voices. A visible green tick mark designates an account as self-verified,” he added.
The move comes amid ongoing debates over whether or not user verification should be implemented on social media platforms to curb their abuse and ensure accountability. The issue was also raised during Parliament’s ongoing budgetary session to prevent harm to users and the spread of fake news. During the session, Minister of State for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrashekar had said that your government was interested in balancing privacy issues with the interests of security and trust, and the “mandatory review” of social media platforms at the interface between both lies .
There is currently no law or rule that provides for mandatory screening of users of the social media platforms.
Voluntary verification requires users to enter their government ID number and a one-time password (OTP), according to Koo. After successful authentication, they are self-verified with a green tick in their profile.
The platform explained: “The validation process is carried out by government-authorized third parties. Koo would not save any information during the process. In addition to empowering users on the platform, voluntary self-verification – by promoting authenticity – will hopefully also help curb online misinformation, hate speech, abuse and bullying.”
“We are very proud to be the first social media platform in the world to implement a voluntary self-verification system. Users can self-verify in under 30 seconds through our secure verification process,” said Aprameya Radhakrishna, co-founder and CEO of Koo.
