Upon President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration on Wednesday, he will take command of the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse Twitter accounts in an official bequeathing of power.
Twitter summarized how it would transfer the official accounts, which also involve @VP, @FLOTUS, @PressSec, and a new account that goes by the username @SecondGentleman.
Joe Biden Clashes With Twitter
According to Twitter in a blog post, as they conducted in 2017, the social media giant is actively working with the American government to support the archival and transition of Twitter accounts across administrations. As Joe Biden is inducted on January 20, 2021, Twitter will carry through the transfer of institutional White House Twitter handles.
The team of the former Vice President flipped the switch on a new Twitter handle for the president-elect on Thursday. This countered the social media network over its decision to deny the incoming administration the old followers of the White House's account.
Biden's transition team created @PresElectBiden in order to begin building a following for one of the new president's official accounts that he will inherit at noon on January 20: @POTUS.
The micro-blogging website is working on transferring the presidential accounts to Biden's transition team.
Twitter would initially transfer the accounts to the National Archives and Records Administration in order for the tweets and account history to remain publicly available, reported The Epoch Times.
The platform expounded it was working with the United States government to support the transition and archival of Twitter accounts across administrations.
Incoming Vice President Kamala Harris' spouse, Doug Emhoff, will assume a newly created account, @SecondGentleman.
According to Twitter, as Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20, 2021, Twitter would facilitate the transfer of institutional White House Twitter accounts, involving @WhiteHouse, @POTUS, @VP, @FLOTUS, and @PressSec.
It was not immediately made clear when the president-elect created the new verified account. As of this writing, it has 439.9k followers.
Biden's first tweet appeared at 7:15 PM PT, introducing the Twitter handle.
Twitter's decision will be a change in practice from 2017 when President Donald Trump was inducted into office. It plans to reset the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse official accounts to zero followers for the incoming administration.
The official @POTUS and @WhiteHouse accounts currently have a large audience -- almost 60 million followers combined, but there is an overlap. President Donald Trump had a head start in 2017 when he was transferred an estimated 12 million followers of @POTUS from Former President Barack Obama's tenure, as well as millions of followers from other official accounts.
Biden's aides have complained that the president-elect is not getting the same courtesy as President Trump.
According to Twitter, "These institutional accounts will not automatically retain the followers from the prior administration. People on Twitter who previously followed institutional White House Twitter accounts, or who currently follow relevant Biden or Harris Twitter accounts, will receive in-app alerts and other prompts that will notify them about the archival process, as well as give them the option to follow the new administration's Twitter accounts," reported USA Today.
