India trying to build its own internet

Over the past couple of years, the Indian government has increased its pressure on global tech companies in line with its efforts to promote indegenious tech networks.

It has recently imposed strict restrictions on the likes of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and warned of legal action like imprisonment to their employees.

The restrictive measures came less than a year after the country banned dozens of Chinese apps, including TikTok and WeChat.

Against that backdrop, homegrown alternatives to many of those services have propped up to try to take advantage of a burgeoning techno-nationalism.

Koo is one such microblogging and social networking service based in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi  recently touted the app and it has been used enthusiastically by several officials and ministries in his government from last year.

This social networking app has been downloaded 3.3 million times so far this year and was downloaded more times than Twitter in the month of February as the Indian government called out the US company claiming that they aren't doing enough to block accounts sharing what it called "incendiary and baseless" hashtags around a protest by farmers against new agricultural laws.

Mayank Bidawatka, the co-founder of Koo, told CNN Business that it feels like you've just been put in the finals of the World Cup suddenly and everyone's watching you and the team. The government backlash against Twitter and other tech platforms is "unfortunate", but did not deny that the clash has given Koo and other Indian apps a boost, he added.

Koo is one such microblogging and social networking service based in India.  The app has been used enthusiastically by several officials and ministries in his government from last year.

These shifting dynamics in India's digital marketplace are yet another warning sign of what's been dubbed the splinternet, where countries stick to their apps and abandon the transparent and global nature of the internet. 

Anupam Srivastava, a non-resident fellow at the Stimson Center, a Washington DC-based think tank and a former head of the Indian government's investment agency, Invest India, said unseating Big Tech may not actually be the point. It's also about sending a message to companies like Facebook and Twitter that access to India's massive internet shouldn't be taken for granted.