White House social media accounts to be transferred to Biden’s team on January 20: Twitter

Twitter on January 14 announced that it will transfer the “@POTUS” account to Joe Biden as he is sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 59th Presidential Inauguration. In a blogpost, the microblogging tech giant informed that it will facilitate the transfer of all institutional White House Twitter accounts such as @WhiteHouse, @POTUS, @VP, @FLOTUS, and @PressSec, adding that those the accounts, however, will not have its followers automatically transferred from the prior administration. Twitter Inc. said that the company will give options to Trump’s account followers on the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse handles whether they want to continue following it when Biden takes office. 

Taking to his official Twitter handle @PresElectBiden account, Biden informed, “Folks — This will be the account for my official duties as President. At 12:01 PM on January 20th, it will become @POTUS. Until then, I’ll be using @JoeBiden.” Furthermore, Twitter added that it will also create a new account @SecondGentleman which will be handed to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s Husband, Douglas Emhoff. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump’s personal existing account  @POTUS will become @POTUS45 just as the Obama administration’s account was archived as @POTUS44.

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Archival process for institutional accounts 

In the blog post, Twitter said, that the followers on the POTUS account will only receive notifications and will not be moved to the new president’s account proactively. Furthermore, the company informed, “Twitter will transfer current institutional accounts to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) where the Tweets and account history will remain publicly available and the account usernames will be updated to reflect their archived status.” Once the archival process is complete, twitter Inc. will hand over the accounts to the Biden administration to assume ownership.

“People on Twitter will be able to watch the transition of power take place in real-time as accounts for the White House, President, Vice President, First Lady, and White House Press Secretary inherit their new institutional username,” the company said. The US citizens will be able to watch the inauguration ceremony and the coverage via live streams and multiple news outlets, including the official inauguration, feeds on Twitter accounts @JCCIC and @BidenInaugural through Twitter’s US Elections Hub.

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