No Followers or Messages: Twitter clears the Account of the US Presidency

It’s the worst nightmare of a regular Twitter user: waking up to find that you no longer have a following.

But that will be exactly what happens in the official accounts of the president of the United States. Not on @realDonaldTrump, who was banned for life. But in lesser known accounts like @POTUS, @WhiteHouse, @FLOTUS and @VP. (POTUS is the official acronym in English for President of the United States, President of the United States; and FLOTUS stands for the first lady).

These institutional accounts do not belong to a particular individual, but are reserved for the official use of those who are in the government in turn. Twitter will transfer President-elect Joe Biden once he officially takes office Wednesday, but without the majority of the followers.

This time it will be different from the previous transition on Twitter, when the official accounts of President Barack Obama were handed over to President Donald Trump with the followers intact. Now, accounts will lose tens of millions of followers by order of Twitter. People removed from these accounts, as well as those who follow “relevant Biden and Harris accounts” like @KamalaHarris, will receive notifications that they can follow them.

Biden’s current account (@PresElectBiden) will become @POTUS once Biden becomes the president of the United States.

From Twitter’s point of view, zeroing gives users the option to follow new accounts or not.

The official account of the presidency has a different destination than Donald Trump’s personal account. 

The company says it has not made a decision as to whether it will apply this strategy in power transfers from now on. But spokesman Nick Pacilio pointed out that it is politics in other countries.

¿What will happen to Trump’s @POTUS account? It will be filed as @ POTUS45, in the same way that the Obama administration was filed as @ POTUS44.

However, it won’t be like this with the @realDonaldTrump account. Although it was shelved by other platforms and researchers, Twitter has removed it. This sparked criticism from academics and others who believe that the account should be part of public records, be easily located and accessible to anyone.

For its part, Facebook is sticking to its previous policy of “doubling” all followers of official White House Facebook and Instagram accounts for the new government. Trump’s POTUS and related accounts will be shelved, and Biden will have his new one.