According to The Hill, the move would be unique than what the social media platform did in 2016 whilst transferring the accounts to now outgoing President Donald Trump’s administration from former President Barack Obama’s administration, stated the Biden campaign’s digital director, Rob Flaherty.
“In 2016, the Trump admin absorbed all of President Obama’s Twitter followers on @POTUS and @WhiteHouse — at Team 44’s urging,” Flaherty tweeted Tuesday. “In 2020, Twitter has informed us that as of right now the Biden administration will have to start from zero.”
Twitter later released a statement confirming that the “@WhiteHouse, @POTUS, @VP, @FLOTUS, @PressSec, @Cabinet, and @LaCasaBlanca” accounts will not automatically retain their current followers following they are transferred to the Biden administration on January 20 — Biden’s inauguration day.
“Instead, Twitter will notify followers of these accounts to provide context that the content will be archived and allow them the choice to follow the Biden administration’s new accounts. For example, people who follow @WhiteHouse will be notified that the account has been archived as @WhiteHouse45 and given the option to follow the new @WhiteHouse account,” Twitter stated.
The Hill additional reported that the company’s statement comes following a back-and-forth earlier Tuesday among Flaherty and Twitter spokesperson Nicholas Pacilio.
However, Pacilio would not confirm Flaherty’s statement Tuesday afternoon and stated the social media platform is nonetheless speaking with the Biden transition group about the transfer of the accounts.
“Twitter has been in ongoing discussions with the Biden transition team on a number of aspects related to White House account transfers,” Pacilio stated in a statement.
Flaherty, whilst doubling down on his comment in response to Pacilio’s statement, tweeted that he’s “happy to share the email thread where we pushed back and we were told this was unequivocal.”
Pacilio responded, “Hey Rob, no need I’m familiar with it!”
“According to the Biden transition team, Twitter will issue a one-time notification suggesting users who follow Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on Twitter follow the “transition46” account which will be rebranded as the WhiteHouse account, but the POTUS, FLOTUS and “PressSec” accounts will start at zero followers,” The Hill reported.
POTUS account has 33.2 million followers and the WhiteHouse account has an added 26 million followers — which are much less than the quantity of followers Trump (88.5 million) has even if the followers of each accounts are combined.
It was additional reported that when Trump leaves the White House, some of his future posts be deleted.
A spokesperson for Twitter previously confirmed that Trump’s account will be treated like any other when he leaves workplace.
“Twitter’s approach to world leaders, candidates and public officials is based on the principle that people should be able to choose to see what their leaders are saying with clear context. This means that we may apply warnings and labels, and limit engagement to certain Tweets,” the spokesperson stated in November. as quoted by The Hill.
“This policy framework applies to current world leaders and candidates for office, and not private citizens when they no longer hold these positions,” the spokesperson added.
Trump may well also be at danger of losing his blue checkmark primarily based on Twitter’s revamped verification course of action set to go into spot early subsequent year. Twitter in a draft released stated that an account may well drop its blue badge if it becomes inactive or is located to be in repeated violation of Twitter’s guidelines, according to The Hill.
“We’ve also added proposed criteria to automatically remove verification from an account if, for example, it’s inactive or if the profile is incomplete, as well as grounds to deny or remove verification from certain qualified accounts that are found to be in repeated violation of the Twitter Rules,” Twitter stated in a weblog post.
The final Electoral College benefits had been 306 for Biden and 232 for Trump. The Electoral College votes will be sent to the US Congress for verification at a joint session, the final stage of the election, which is scheduled for January 6.