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US President-Elect Biden Starts New Twitter Account, Criticizes Policy on POTUS Account (bloomberg.com) 237

Posted by EditorDavid from the how-tweet-it-is dept.
"This will be the account for my official duties as President," tweeted U.S. president-elect Joe Biden on Thursday — but from a new account at @PresElectBiden (which will transition to @POTUS after Wednesday's inauguration).

But Bloomberg reports Biden is still "clashing with the social media company over its decision to deny the incoming administration millions of existing White House followers." Biden's transition opened @PresElectBiden in order to start building a following for one of the official accounts the new president will inherit at noon on Jan. 20: @POTUS. In a change in practice from 2017, when President Donald Trump entered office, Twitter Inc. plans to reset both the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse official accounts to zero followers for Biden. The two accounts currently have a massive audience — nearly 60 million followers combined, though there is overlap.

Trump got a head start in 2017 when he inherited about 12 million followers of @POTUS from President Barack Obama's tenure, plus millions of followers from other official accounts. Though Trump used his personal account, @realDonaldTrump, as his primary social media mouthpiece throughout his presidency, Biden's aides think it's unfair Twitter isn't handing over followers along with the official accounts...

Twitter said it is too technically difficult to copy or roll over the millions of followers from the Trump White House accounts to Biden's official accounts. But two transition officials privately expressed skepticism, pointing to other social media platforms' handling of the change in administration. Both Facebook Inc. and its subsidiary Instagram will duplicate the millions of followers currently following the Trump White House accounts to follow new Biden White House accounts. "They are advantaging President Trump's first days of the administration over ours," Rob Flaherty, the transition's digital director who will be director of digital strategy in the Biden White House, said of Twitter. "If we don't end the day with the 12 million followers that Donald Trump inherited from Barack Obama, then they have given us less than they gave Donald Trump, and that is a failure."
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US President-Elect Biden Starts New Twitter Account, Criticizes Policy on POTUS Account More

US President-Elect Biden Starts New Twitter Account, Criticizes Policy on POTUS Account

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  • Influencer? (Score:5, Informative)

    by enriquevagu ( 1026480 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @11:40AM (#60951818)

    Seriously, is he an influencer, or the President of the USA? Is this a race to see who has the most followers?

    Note that I believe that the White House should have an official account for the President, which is not "reset" after changing the person, but complaining because they are not receiving sufficient followers and they are in disadvantage sounds so childish.

    • Re:Influencer? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @11:51AM (#60951864)

      Seriously, is he an influencer, or the President of the USA? Is this a race to see who has the most followers?

      Note that I believe that the White House should have an official account for the President, which is not "reset" after changing the person, but complaining because they are not receiving sufficient followers and they are in disadvantage sounds so childish.

      Sorry, but no. Get ALL high-ranking government officials off social media.

      They already have a platform. The President of the United States can command the airwaves anytime he (or she) wants, so don't give me this shit that they "need" a voice. Presidents have had no problem communicating with the entire nation and the rest of the world before Twitter came along. As for the rest, lawmakers have an entire channel dedicated to their televised presence (CSPAN).

      Besides, after this clusterfuck of an election, political leaders may find politics as a whole, ranging from tiresome to toxic with the American people. We'll see how many citizens actually give a shit about politics after this circus dies down. Only reason they might is because they're forced to, staving to death on bailout bread crumbs.

      • Re: Influencer? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by NagrothAgain ( 4130865 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @12:15PM (#60951918)
        What airwaves? What's this TV or Radio station which will always carry a complete, Live, unedited White House Press Conference?

        I would rather be able to see and hear exactly what is said. I don't need some pompous Reporter deciding what I'm allowed to see, or providing "context" or "commentary" which is usually slanted and often flat out inaccurate.

        • consider.
          if joe biden has his own twitter account.
          and the potus has a twitter account.
          and team orange has been momentarily shut down

          how will the conspiracy theory folks react to reading facts

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sjames ( 1099 )

            how will the conspiracy theory folks react to reading facts

            Remember the scene where Dorothy splashed the Wicked Witch of the West with water?

          • Re: Influencer? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by kenh ( 9056 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @11:40PM (#60953902) Homepage Journal

            I think the real reason Team Biden is arguing to start with tens of millions of followers is because they fear "Old Joe" won't attract even a million followers. Republicans followed Trump because they liked him, Democrats followed him to "keep an eye on him" - who will willingly add "Old Joe" to their twitter feed?

            Personally, I would have liked to see Joe get all 60 million Trump followers, only to watch them leave him by 12:01 PM Wednesday.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by porges ( 58715 )

          What's this TV or Radio station which will always carry a complete, Live, unedited White House Press Conference?

          CSPAN, and probably whitehouse.gov .

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • > The fact that US journalists aren't very good shouldn't be a reason to avoid journalism being the primary means by which we get government announcements etc.

            I'm thinking about this and trying to guess at what you were thinking when you wrote it.

            "Just because it's crappy doesn't mean we rely on it".

            Maybe if I can understand "yeah it's crappy, let's depend on it more" I'll finally understand Windows fans. ;)

        • Nothing is stopping Trump or Biden from hosting unedited videos on www.whitehouse.gov

          • Nothing is stopping Trump or Biden from hosting unedited videos on www.whitehouse.gov

            You are technically correct.

            What is stopping unedited videos posted to www.whitehouse.gov from being viewed, on the other hand, is lack of support for RSS, Atom, or h-feed in the reader applications that smartphone users are already using. Like it or not, most users have switched from RSS readers to social media silos. I'm guessing that part of this stems from the RSS model's lack of support for mobile platforms' push notifications.

        • What's this TV or Radio station which will always carry a complete, Live, unedited White House Press Conference?

          The big four, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN always carry complete, live, unedited White House Press Conference coverage. They have always done so, even with the seditious traitor right up until a month or so ago where all would cut away when the lies and conspiracy theories and personal attacks came since that is not a press conference.

          Oh, and btw, the Fox tabloid did the exact same thing [thehill.com].

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Cylix ( 55374 )

            That is the complete opposite of "always carry complete, live and unedited coverage."

      • I can see having a twitter account that retweets messages from the official presidential releases. However making twitter an "official" presidential release channel just seems like a lousy method for a president to address the country.

        • I can see having a twitter account that retweets messages from the official presidential releases. However making twitter an "official" presidential release channel just seems like a lousy method for a president to address the country.

          Watch for Twitter to be classified as a public utility in 3..2..1

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 )

      Yes, apparently we can't have a normal president that doesn't do Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, 4chan or Tiktok anymore. Like, you know, a president that does his job instead of posting on social media - or even more silly, having one of his aides post in his place.

      • Re:Influencer? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @02:08PM (#60952362) Journal

        Yes, apparently we can't have a normal president that doesn't do Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, 4chan or Tiktok anymore.

        Look, gramps, the world has changed. Lots of kids these days use the twitters and snap-tok or tick-chat or whatever they call it.

        Today a normal president does have a social media profile. The fact that most in the past didn't is simply because most of the past didn't have social media. Now, the average person has it, so normal presidents will. Normal changes. It has changed. Deal with it.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        Blame FDR when he started using that newfangled radio thingimabob.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

          Even the founding fathers have it wrong. They shouldn't even be writing things down. They should be speaking directly to the people. No teleprompters, no megaphones, just a guy standing on a tall rock. It was good enough for Jesus.

    • and general messaging. It'll be harder for Biden to build followers because the entire point of voting him in was to get rid of the celebrity and go back to a boring old administrator who'd fix things. So what Biden says isn't, by it's nature, going to be all that exciting or important, it's what he does that matters. That's good from a government standpoint but not so much from a social media standpoint.

    • Popularity contests and "influencing" is in a politician's wheelhouse.

    • Is this a race to see who has the most followers?

      That is easy. The former lame-duck president has currently zero followers.

    • > Seriously, is he an influencer, or the President of the USA? Is this a race to see who has the most followers? ...
      > complaining because they are not receiving sufficient followers and they are in disadvantage sounds so childish.

      My hope was that Biden might bring a presidential tone back to the office, that perhaps he would be the opposite of "childish".
      Biden should have let his fans complain about this on his behalf and remained above it himself. It would have been good if he at least gave t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by irving47 ( 73147 )

      "complaining.... sounds so childish"

      You just described 90% of "serious" twitter users.

  • Waaa.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MikeDataLink ( 536925 )

    Get a grip and suck it up.

    Full disclosure: I voted for Biden as a vote against Trump. I don't like either of them.

    • Re: Waaa.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @12:21PM (#60951934)

      Uuum, this bullshis is why you guys effectively only have two parties.

      Fuckin circular logic.

      • You're not wrong but multi-party systems have edge cases where they can result in problems too.

        In theory a 2 party system is supposed to push candidates towards the middle so that they need to have at least some support from both sides of the spectrum. Unfortunately when you've got a super close split, or as in the USA, a super close split that is effectively enforced by an antiquated electoral model (the Electoral College), and one or both of those sides is really dug in, then you get what we've got.

        The t

        • Re: Waaa.... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @01:17PM (#60952176) Journal

          The first thing that the USA should do is eliminate the Electoral College. This would get rid of a raft of problems, which are due to the outsize influence that voters in the smaller and more rural states have.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Mononymous ( 6156676 )

            No. The right solution is to strip some power from the president. He's the president of the union, not the president of the people. That's why the people don't elect him. It works when he doesn't have much power to affect individuals, just the states. Under the Constitution, the federal government governs the states, and the states govern the people.
            The idea that the urban voters of a handful of states should elect the president is repugnant to the federal system.

            • Maybe that system is antiquated and it's time to use the "edit" features built into the constitution? Back in the day the world was "smaller" in a way, and people lived more independently. Today's world is much more interconnected. Travel and communication is much easier and quicker. People can freely travel between states for commerce. Think about policies like universal health care. It would be impossible for a single state to give their citizens universal health care since anyone can just drive across st

            • The idea that the urban voters of a handful of states should elect the president is repugnant to the federal system.

              Then we'll go with majority vote, like is done with every other elected office in the country. You're also missing one important point. When the Electoral College was created, the urban voters of a handful of states elected the president because that is where the concentration of people was located. More people lived in and around cities than were farmers and the like.

              As to stripping power f

        • The two party system in the US has the effect that both parties randomly take contrary stances on any issue they think they can "catch a voter" with, e.g. about abortion. And in the end you usually have a 30% or more people not voting for various reasons. There are nice youtube vidoes explaining why a 2 party system is the worst "democratic system" thinkable.

          A few months ago one had linked one here, unfortunately I did not BM it ...

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

            There are nice youtube vidoes explaining why a 2 party system is the worst "democratic system" thinkable.

            Well, there's a worse one in which only one party is always in change.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Brain-Fu ( 1274756 )

      I don't like either of them either. But the enormous wave of raw hatred for Trump really shows, in my opinion, how much power the media has over us (including and especially people who insist that they are independent thinkers who are not beholden to the media, and believe that Trump is the spawn of Cthulhu based on objective information alone. And also the insurrectionists who thought that storming the whitehouse was justified, morally correct, and in accordance with direct orders from Trump).

      Over the pa

      • Trump brought on hate from his own doings.

    • Agreed. If you want followers, you have to prove you are a leader first.
      The bar for leadership set by the current President is so low, I don't know how this could even be a problem.

  • At least Twitter is consistent. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @11:48AM (#60951848)

    Extremist content is compelling - it keeps people on the platform, contributing.

    Biden doesn't have nearly the 'extremist sex appeal' that Trump did - so I can see why Twitter would end up going out of its way to snub him.

    This is also why I've never seen a valid reason to use Twitter - it's like all the worst aspects of bad newsgroup channels, with the added 'benefit' of regularly ruining businesses and careers.

    It's like watching the old Jerry Springer show - I can see the satisfaction some garner from it, but it's not healthy - and it's really about the advertisements using short snips of humanity as content.

    And it's not really a great place to find your 15 minutes of fame, is it?

    Ryan Fenton

  • Audience... (Score:3)

    by Knightman ( 142928 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @11:50AM (#60951856)

    No one is entitled to an audience, even if you happen to be the President of the USA.

    • Uuum, I think if you don't have the citizens of the country as their audience, ... then I'm sorry, but you are not their president.

      • Which is not what I said. The president can have the citizens as an audience but is not entitled to it. You do understand the difference I hope.

        • The @POTUS account was started by Obama under his official duties as president. It should be US government property and not something that Trump can dispose of as his own personal thing. In fact this should be prosecuted as a normal failure to hand over an account when leaving a job.

          • You're ire is misdirected. If you had bothered to read the OP you would know that it is Twitter that will reset the accounts when Biden is sworn in.

            I've a hard time seeing that the @POTUS account is US government property, since that would mean they aren't bound by Twitters TOS. The implications are...interesting to use a modest word.

            • You're ire is misdirected. If you had bothered to read the OP you would know that it is Twitter that will reset the accounts when Biden is sworn in.

              I've a hard time seeing that the @POTUS account is US government property, since that would mean they aren't bound by Twitters TOS. The implications are...interesting to use a modest word.

              So, you have some truth with this, in that, yes, it will be Twitter taking the account away from DJT, deleting the contacts. However this is only happening because DJT is refusing to just give the account directly over to the Biden team as he should.

    • No one is entitled to an audience, even if you happen to be the President of the USA.

      I mean I can't remember the previous president burning a phonebook of all media contacts on the way out the door.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

      On the other hand, my following of @POTUS means I want to follow @POTUS. If I don't like the new POTUS, I can unfollow @POTUS. If I only cared about Trump, I would've followed @realDonaldTrump instead. Twitter shouldn't be deciding this for me.

  • Count your blessing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chris453 ( 1092253 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @11:50AM (#60951862)

    Is this really a problem? I would have thought that it would be a blessing to start with a clean slate instead of all the old toxic baggage from the last administration.

    Hopefully the Biden administration can move the country in a positive direction, but starting with a crap ton (or is it hellaton these days) of really bad tweets would seem to be a hindrance. In addition I really hope that media just stops talking about Trump 24/7. Like a spoiled toddler, that is all he cares about.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fennec ( 936844 )
      They want the followers, not the previous tweets.

    • For all his faults (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @12:53PM (#60952096)
      Biden still wants to reach those people. I think a lot are too far gone to reach with words and instead should be treated like a feral dog (give 'em food, e.g. jobs and stimulus, and try to domesticate them again) but he's going to at least try words on top of the "feed the feral dog' approach, I'll give him that.

  • After all, the people in the new administration think that Trump supporters are bad people. Why would they WANT to have them hang around?

    It is likely that many of the 12 million that got pushed over to Trump from Obama didn't like that; they didn't sign up for him.

  • Why is it difficult now and not then? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @12:07PM (#60951896)

    I would also express skepticism, it seems like Twitter should do what they did last time, and leave the existing followers of the POTUS account in place.

    Why was it possible then but now now? Even the difference in numbers, ~17 million to over 60 million, doesn't seem like a vast difference in terms of ability to handle a transition.

  • Fear not, Joe (Score:3)

    by Anachronous Coward ( 6177134 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @12:09PM (#60951898)

    Surely you can afford this [likigram.com].

  • Seems like all Twitter has to do is change the password and give the new password to the new administration.

  • Fake follower counts (Score:3)

    by kaoshin ( 110328 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @12:13PM (#60951914)
    Given that the majority of Trump's twitter followers are claimed to be fake or inactive [mediaite.com] I thought it was all built on a lie? Or maybe that is the point? Lets also not forget that 10 percent of twitter users create 80 percent of tweets [slashdot.org] but I suppose everything will be completely representative of society and not fake when it is supportive of Biden.

  • Sad... (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 )

    That he feels the need to stoop as low as Trump.

    We're still not completely out (I know, I know, ain't that obvious, It's way too early), as long as presidents still feel the need for "social media". Especially SoundbiteBlog aka Twitter.

    If I was president, I't write a weekly blog, that actually goes in-depth, writren by me myself, so people could actuwlly.get to know me as a person and actual real human being, and not some figure(head). Openly announcing that it's gonna be with all the flaws, but also all t

  • Twitter is a private company and is free to keep Biden of the platform completely if they chose
  • Why is it that the last few us presidents do nothing but complain.

  • I see this is a failure of the Biden administration already. If we learned anything the last few years it is that public officials should not be tweeting at all. These off the cuff social media platforms are not appropriate for official representatives and statements.

    Any statements from the President or indeed any high ranking official in government should be coming through the official press office, never directly except via carefully planned speeches or other official channels.

  • Words, words. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fyngyrz ( 762201 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @01:08PM (#60952148) Homepage Journal

    From TFS:

    Twitter said it is too technically difficult to copy or roll over the millions of followers from the Trump White House accounts to Biden's official accounts.

    That seems like an unnecessarily long way to say "We're too incompetent to manage basic IT."

    • Yeah I mean using a password reset form and sending confirmation emails to the new Whitehouse staff is an insurmountable task for such geniuses. On never mind they are lying.

  • So he said (Score:3)

    by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @01:09PM (#60952156) Journal

    Twitter said it is too technically difficult to copy or roll over the millions of followers from the Trump White House accounts to Biden's official accounts

    This is a lie. -- note the period

  • Biden isn't being childish here, a lot is at stake (Score:4, Insightful)

    by psperl ( 1704658 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @01:20PM (#60952194) Homepage
    Biden wants those followers because it is very difficult to pierce the bubble that Trump followers live in. For the sake of the health of the nation, these people need some form of information that isn't tainted. Yes, many will unfollow, but some will stay and that opens the door for Biden to make reasonable common sense arguments that could get some people thinking rationally again with regards to facts and create a counterpoint to the other misinformation sources. Biden isn't doing this to win popularity points!

    • Biden wants those followers because it is very difficult to pierce the bubble that Trump followers live in.

      Biden wants those followers because it automatically gives a voice to the many millions off official media staff that follow them. Don't pretend for a moment that you think that followers of Trump on Twitter are actually followers of Trump in the real world.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by psperl ( 1704658 )
        Of course not all of those twitter followers are real trump followers, but I assume that vast majority of official media staff would just follow Biden after the "reset." That can't be said of the "real" Trump followers, which is why I believe this is an issue. If this was just about reporters, journalists, and writers, I don't think Biden would care.

        • The vast majority of people in the world don't track everything they do in their professional lives. It's very hard to identify the absence of something, especially when said something is an account among likely hundreds of others which you *expect* to be quieter going forward.

    • It seems brain candy addition is a thing, but I don't think the POTUS official channels are the best way to feed the beast. The POTUS feed should be as interesting as CSPAN, leave the passion stoking to other accounts, or at least feign staying above the fray,
    • That's a compelling argument, I'd love to hear Twitter's reaction to it. Especially since leaving the followers intact is no work and therefore easier technically than any alternative.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @01:21PM (#60952196)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Biden isn't a charismatic figure

      We'll just have to see what the inauguration day crowds look like compared to Trump, Obama and others.

      • Hopefully nobody shows up as the whole capital is locked down plus there is a pandemic!

      • Biden isn't a charismatic figure

        We'll just have to see what the inauguration day crowds look like compared to Trump, Obama and others.

        Biden doesn't have a raging inferiority complex like the con artist. In fact, Biden has already told people not to show up due to covid and for their own safety because of all the white supremacists who are planning acts against them and him. Like this guy [chicagotribune.com].

        Obviously Biden's crowd size will be significantly smaller, and he's fine with that.

  • Anyway Biden has 40 yrs on Capitol Hill. Did Trump whine that on day 1 of his Presidency he did not have 40 yrs of political contacts to get his agenda pushed forward?

    • It's an OFFICE account; the people in the office change but the account remains the same; or did previously.

      Trump whined and LIED about crowd size on day 1. It couldn't have been more stupid and dishonest. Other than his tone of voice, he's a whiny little bitch of a man-child. Trump himself said he whines a lot (I remember seeing the video.)

      You seriously complaining about the Biden admin whining?

  • Followers of POTUS should remain on the account. And any nerd worth their 1s and 0s skoffs at a claim that you cannot take the user list of POTUS followers and transition them to the new account. That's just silly.

    The best evidence of this is that they did it already for the transition from Obama to Trump. Fair play and consistency says, do it again.

    But mostly it's that if you follow the account of an office, you still follow when someone else has the office. That's common sense.

  • Roll over? Just hand over the keys and be done. (Score:3)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday January 16, 2021 @02:50PM (#60952516)

    Just reset the passwords and give the passwords to the actual POTUS and the actual White House staff. If you've thought about this enough to decide its too complicated then you've over thought it.

  • I don't really care much about Twitter, but there is the principle of consistency at stake.

    What did Twitter do with the official White House accounts during that previous presidential transition?

    How has Twitter handled the transition of accounts for other U.S. government agencies during leadership transitions?

    How has Twitter handled transitions with other countries?

    How has Twitter handled official organizational accounts when a new CEO or equivalent takes over?

  • I'm betting Twitter doesn't want to have an account where lots of existing so-called hate-speech people will continue to populate an existing account with their rhetoric.

    Or what I think might be the more realistic reason... the mass exodus OUT of the account by Trump supporters might further bolster the idea that people are leaving Twitter in droves.

    And that's bad for stock prices.

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