What the Tech? How Twitter Transitions to the Biden Administration
When President Joe Biden took the oath of office at the White House, it wasn’t the only transition underway. Moments after Biden stated “So help me God”, the official Twitter account (@POTUS) was transferred to the Biden administration.
The “Twitter transition” did not require someone from the Trump administration to hand the username and password of the account to a member of the Biden team.
Government accounts are handled by Twitter and it was more than just a transfer of tweeting, it involved millions of Twitter followers of a dozen government officials and family members.
Prior to noon Wednesday, the @POTUS Twitter account had over 33.3 million followers. Those followers did not automatically begin following the @POTUS account of President Biden.
They did automatically begin following @POTUS45, an archive of tweets from the official government account of former President Trump.
Followers of @preselectbiden automatically begin following @POTUS.
Former Vice-President Mike Pence’s official Twitter account, @VP becomes @VP45. @SenKamalaHarris takes over the @VP account.
The transition also extends to the former first lady. @FLOTUSBiden becomes @FLOTUS. Twitter also established a new Twitter account for @secondgentleman for VP Kamala Harris’ husband.
None of this affects former President Trump’s personal Twitter account @therealdonaldtrump which was permanently suspended by Twitter earlier this month.
Followers of President Biden should have received a notification from Twitter about the transition.
If all of this sounds confusing you can see Twitter’s explanation here.
