Inauguration day is set for Jan. 20 as Joe Biden will replace Donald Trump as President of the United States. Since the November election, the transfer of presidential power between Biden and Trump has been a trending topic.
Another transition taking place on Wednesday is the control over the @POTUS Twitter
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account.
While it is true that Donald Trump’s personal Twitter account was suspended on Jan. 8, the ban does not include the official @POTUS account.
On inauguration day, Twitter will begin the transfer. The process begins by archiving the account history and sending it to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) where the tweets and overall account activity data will remain publicly available.
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The Trump administration’s @POTUS account will be archived as @POTUS45, the same manner in which Barack Obama’s account was archived as @POTUS44. Once the account has been archived, it is no longer able to tweet.
According to Twitter, other “Institutional White House Twitter accounts” like @VP, @FLOTUS, @WhiteHouse and @PressSec are subject to the same archival account process.
Twitter has stated that “these institutional accounts will not automatically retain the followers from the prior administration.”
Because of this, if users already following @POTUS want to follow the Biden administration’s official Twitter account, they will have to re-follow @POTUS once the transfer is complete as the account will switch over to @POTUS45.
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Users following the accounts will receive an in-app alert notifying them about the archival procedure, and give them the opportunity to follow the new administration’s Twitter accounts.
The new institutional accounts, however, will not start at zero followers. Twitter has detailed that @Transition46 will become @WhiteHouse, @PresElectBiden will become @POTUS, @SenKamalaHarris will become @VP, @FLOTUSBiden will become @FLOTUS, and @PressSecPsaki will become @PressSec.
Several social media platforms have banned Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, including Facebook
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Instagram, Snapchat, the Google
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-owned video platform YouTube, and the Amazon
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-owned video service Twitch.
