First published Nov 8, 2022, 21:04 IST
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter has sparked much discussion about future changes to the microblogging service. Despite this, India’s first Twitter user has some thoughts to express on the platform’s development and recent fixes.
In 2006, a girl received an email from TWTTR (codename of the project) inviting her to sign up for a new platform during the Ork and blogging era before Twitter was officially created. Before the network’s official debut, she signed up and became the first Indian to use Twitter. That woman was Naina Redhu, who has posted around 1,75,000 tweets and currently works in a hotel in Jaisalmer.
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Speaking to the media, she said: “I remember getting an invitation from Twitter via email; it was called TWTTR at the time; the spelling has changed since then. It was just a fluke when I joined and I had no idea it was going to be a such an important platform in the future.”
Naina is a frequent Twitter user and her profile also features a blue check mark, which has been the subject of much debate lately because Musk said users will have to spend $8, or about Rs 650 on month, to get a blue tick. When asked if it would be one she would pay, she said: “At the moment, it’s unclear what the money is being used for. Whether the blue tick still means what it does now or whether that meaning will change? I won’t be able to decide until there’s some sort of clarity on that.”
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“It’s a private corporation and they started showing the blue check mark next to user accounts to confirm that it’s a legitimate public figure. And why should I pay for this now if I haven’t in the previous 16 years?” she added.
She went on to talk about her experience of being the only Indian on Twitter. Naina said: “There was no one from India at the time, and most of the discussions I had seen were from Twitter employees or their friends. Before they communicated through messages.” She said that she does not believe that this deserves to be noted in her biography, because it is not an achievement and it was just a coincidence, and she did not work hard for it. “Being the first Indian to use Twitter, I learned about it when a writer from the US published an article on the first 140 Twitter users. My name was listed there,” she added.
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Nowhere in Naina’s Twitter bio, which describes her as an “Experienced Photographer, Artist and Collector”, does it mention that she was the first Twitter user in India.
It has been almost 2 decades since Naina joined the micro-blogging platform and in that period of time, along with the world, Twitter too has gone through a lot of changes even before its latest takeover. For iOS users in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK, Twitter Blue with verification was released last week. Later, Musk reportedly backed up the rumors and revealed that the business will pay $8 a month for a Twitter subscription service that would give users priority in replies, mentions and searches.
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Last updated on 08 Nov 2022, 21:04 IST
