President Biden will like some supporters on Twitter. After Biden is sworn in on January 20th, Twitter plans to wipe out all followers from the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse pages, rather than moving the current followers of the accounts to the new government, according to Rob Flaherty, digital director of Biden.
The @VP, @FLOTUS, @PressSec, @Cabinet, and @LaCasaBlanca pages will all be washed out by their fans, Twitter added. Earlier today, the Wall Street Journal reported that there was a disagreement between the Biden camp and Twitter about whether followers would be moved.
This is a reversal from what Twitter did after the Trump administration took over the Obama administration accounts in 2017. Twitter effectively duplicated the current accounts back then, creating an archive of tweets and followers from the Obama period and creating a new collection of accounts for the incoming administration that kept all such followers without any of the tweets.
This time, Twitter has not said why the strategy is evolving. Twitter told The Verge that it is “in ongoing discussions on several aspects related to White House account transfers with the Biden transition team.” Biden’s team appears to be upset about this regulatory shift, considering the major digital edge they will lose. The transition team “pushed back and we were told this was unequivocal,” Flaherty said.
Anyone following one of the handles being converted will get a message on Inauguration Day that the account is being archived, a Twitter spokesperson said. They would also be given the option to obey the latest accounts of the Biden administration. There are no specifics yet about what users would look like for the notification.
Although the president has plenty of pulpits to worry about, after the last four years, there’s no doubt that Twitter is a huge contact medium for the president. It is also important to restore these accounts: @POTUS has 33 million followers, @WhiteHouse has 26 million, @FLOTUS has 16 million, and @PressSec has 6 million followers.
The Journal announced that Donald Trump’s @POTUS account would be renamed @POTUS45 and “frozen as-is.” He’ll still have @realDonaldTrump in charge, but with less protection than before.
