President-elect Joe Biden created a new Twitter account in anticipation of his January 20 oath. The account will receive the official @POTUS as soon as Biden officially becomes the 46th president of the United States.
Biden launched @PresElectBiden on Thursday – just six days before the inauguration – amid continuing conflict with Twitter over the delivery of @POTUS and @WhiteHouse.
“Guys – This will be the account for my official duties as president. At 12:01 pm on January 20, it will become @POTUS. Until then, I will be using @JoeBiden,” tweeted the new account.
This is the only tweet the account has sent so far. He had gained over 838,000 followers by the time this book was written, well below the 33 million who follow the current @POTUS account.
Twitter plans to deliver the official identifiers to the Biden administration on January 20, but the current @POTUS and @WhiteHouse accounts will be archived, leaving the new administration to start with zero followers.
The social media company did not do this in 2017, when the Trump administration took over the accounts and the decision was a source of tension between Twitter and the Biden transition team.
@POTUS and @WhiteHouse combine around 60 million followers, with some overlap, and resetting the numbers of followers can make it difficult for the new management to have the same reach on Twitter.
“They are favoring President Trump’s early days in administration over ours,” said Rob Flaherty, digital director of the Biden transition. He will be the director of digital strategy for the White House after January 20.
“If we don’t end the day with the 12 million followers that Donald Trump inherited from Barack Obama, they gave us less than they gave Donald Trump, and that is a failure.”
The aim of the new account is to allow Biden to accumulate followers before taking over @POTUS, although there is limited time for him to do so. President Donald Trump’s personal account had 88 million followers before his permanent suspension.
“As we did in 2017, Twitter is actively working with the United States government to support the transition of Twitter accounts between administrations, so that the new Biden administration has access to the White House’s institutional Twitter accounts,” said a spokesman Twitter voice Newsweek on Saturday.
“Accounts will not automatically retain their existing followers. Instead, Twitter will notify followers of those accounts to provide context that the content will be archived and allow them to choose to follow the new Biden administration accounts. For example, people who follow @ WhiteHouse will be notified that the account has been archived as @ WhiteHouse45 and will have the option to follow the new @WhiteHouse account. “
Flaherty explained his reasoning on Twitter on Friday, saying that the presidential Twitter account is “a public good” and that many normal people follow it.
“Of course, a lot of bots and trolls, but also a lot of people who don’t really get involved in politics. Too much hatred ensues. Who knows! That’s why Twitter changed Obama’s followers to Trump! It’s not a political account, it’s the president’s account, “he wrote.
“Anyway, the good thing about Joe Biden is that he really doesn’t give a shit about Twitter followers. Or Twitter! But he cares about communicating with everyone in the country, whether they agree with him or not,” said Flaherty.
Alex Wong / Getty Images