Twitter said it is “actively preparing to support the transition of White House institutional Twitter accounts on January 20th, 2021,” Twitter spokesperson Nick Pacilio said in an email statement.
The service will also transfer other government accounts such as @VP, @FLOTUS, and @whitehouse to the presumptive Joe Biden administration. That’s if, of course, the Donald Trump administration fails to overturn the recent election.
The process is being done in consultation with the National Archives, as it was in 2017, Pacilio said.
The move comes even as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was lambasted last month by Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz over its partisanship. During congressional testimony by Dorsey, he was asked by Cruz, “Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear? And why do you persist in behaving as a Democratic super PAC, silencing views contrary to your political beliefs?”
“I hear the concerns and acknowledge them,” Dorsey replied.
The new @POTUS and other accounts will be reset to zero tweets.
Trump mainly uses his personal account, @realDonaldTrump, to broadcast his messages. His personal account has 88 million followers to the @POTUS’s 32 million. The @POTUS and others are mainly used for retweets.
Biden’s personal account is not that active. He has so far sent less than 7,000 tweets to his 19 million followers, compared to Trump’s 58,000.
Although Trump has used Twitter as a daily platform to gain direct access to his followers, his messages often carry Twitter-imposed warning messages.
