POTUS, the President’s Twitter account, will drop to zero followers when Biden takes office

Social network Twitter, Donald Trump’s favorite, has confirmed that will not automatically transfer millions of subscribers from official accounts from the current administration to Joe Biden’s new government, but will give users the option to continue or not to follow them.

The measure affects followers of government managed accounts like @WhiteHouse and @POTUS (President of the United States), who will transfer to Biden when he takes office in January.

According to several reports, Twitter He has already communicated his transition plans to Biden’s team with the profile of the homonymous social network, for which the followers of the outgoing President, Donald Trump, will not be transferred to the accounts of the new administration.

Twitter’s decision will not affect the personal account @realDonaldTrump, which was constantly used by President Trump and which has around 88 million followers. This was the profile of the tycoon before he became the first American president. The official @POTUS RT account usually contains content from @RealDonaldTrump and also other profiles, such as @WhiteHouse.

// Twitter will have new labels to distinguish bots and memorial accounts

Official government accounts “won’t automatically keep your current subscribers. In exchange, Twitter will notify subscribers of these accounts to put them in context that content will be archived and it will give them the ability to follow new accounts of the Biden administration, ”the social network reported in a statement.

“For example, people who follow @WhiteHouse will be notified that the account has been classified as @ WhiteHouse45 and will have the option to follow the new @WhiteHouse account,” they explained.

When Trump assumed the presidency in 2017, a new @POTUS account was created for the republican leaving the one that Barack Obama’s team had managed under the name of @ POTUS44 – a reference to the 44th president of the country -, although the subscribers of this account were automatically transferred to the new one.

On this occasion, current White House accounts will adopt number 45, and subscribers will be notified to give them the opportunity to follow new profiles.

Twitter is working on the transition to this widely used platform by Trump since the official election results were finalized.

While not as followed as Trump’s personal account, that of @POTUS has around 33 million followers, while @WhiteHouse has 26 million. The transfer by the new management will also affect other accounts, such as @VP (of the Vice President), @FLOTUS (the First Lady), @PressSec, @Cabinet and @LaCasaBlanca, which sends messages in Spanish.