Ruuh And Zo Chatbots?

[UserName32]

Does anyone remember the Ruuh and Zo chatbots for Facebook Messenger? If so, does anyone know why Microsoft shut them down in 2019?

[choux]

Sorry no, UN32. Hardly ever use FB, other than to open links.

[Buenchico]

Welcome to The AnswerBank.

Zo was targeted at US users but came under fire because of the way that discussion was, for example, allowed about Christianity but not about Islam. See 'Reception' here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zo_(bot)

Ruuh was (in theory, at least), exclusively for users in India. However, as it was just a local variant of Zo, it ceased operation at around the same time.

[UserName32]

Really? Because even though Ruuh was clearly meant to be an Indian chatbot, it wasn’t exclusive to India. It spoke English, too, as I remember having some chats with it.

[Buenchico]

India has the second-largest English-speaking population in the world, with around 150 million of its citizens (about 10% of the country's population) speaking English as their first language. English is also widely used in business in India.

So, given that there are more than twice as many people who speak English in India than there are in the UK, it's hardly surprising that Ruuh could converse in English too ;-)

[UserName32]

Also, from the chats I had with Zo, it seemed to not want to talk about any religion. Islam OR Christianity or religion in general. So it’s possible Microsoft reprogrammed that aspect of the bot some time after coming under fire, but perhaps too late.