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Joe Biden will have to start from scratch on his presidential Twitter account

Why did Twitter change its policy this time?

joe biden holding the twitter logo
Image: KnowTechie

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In light of everything going on in the world right now, this seems like a pretty trivial thing, but here we are. Announced this week by Rob Flaherty, Joe Biden’s digital director, Twitter is making them start from scratch.

Basically, what this means is that instead of transferring the accounts with all of their followers, the official @POTUS, @WhiteHouse, @FLOTUS, @VP, @PressSec, @Cabinet, and @LaCasaBlanca accounts will all be archived, tweets and followers deleted, and given over as fresh accounts.

This differs from 2017 when the accounts were handed over to the current administration. At that time, tweets were wiped but retained their followers. That said, Barack Obama made it clear that he wanted everything to transfer over to Donald Trump, including followers.

Now, on Inauguration Day, anyone that was following any of the accounts listed above will get a notification on Twitter alerting them of the change and inviting them to follow the “new” accounts.

When the transition happens, the current @POTUS account will be frozen, renamed to @POTUS45, and locked.

At that time, Trump will no longer be afforded the Twitter protections he’s come accustomed to, and honestly, considering that nearly 60% of his followers could be bots, maybe starting fresh isn’t such a bad thing.

Have any thoughts on this? Do you agree with Twitter’s decision? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Former KnowTechie editor.

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