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Twitter will make Joe Biden’s @POTUS account start with zero followers

The Verge – “President Biden is going to need some Twitter followers. Twitter plans to wipe out all followers from the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse accounts once Biden is sworn in on January 20th, rather than transferring the accounts’ existing followers over to the new administration, according to Rob Flaherty, Biden’s digital director. The accounts for @VP, @FLOTUS, @PressSec, @Cabinet, and @LaCasaBlanca will also have their followers wiped, Twitter said. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier today that there was contention between the Biden camp and Twitter over whether followers would transfer over. This is a reversal from what Twitter did in 2017 when the Trump administration took over accounts from the Obama administration. Back then, Twitter essentially duplicated the existing accounts, creating an archive of Obama-era tweets and followers and building a new set of accounts for the incoming administration that retained all of those followers without any of the tweets. The Biden administration will miss out on tens of millions of followers Twitter hasn’t said why it’s changing the policy this time…”

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