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Twitter to wipe Trump followers before handover

bbc.com

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Re: Twitter to wipe Trump followers before handover

#3

Post by remram »

deadanon wrote: post #2

Interesting, I'm curious why a wipe of followers of a government office twitter account. Does twitter do that for other similar official accounts?

Yeah, when Obama was elected, @POTUS was renamed to @POTUS44 to give @POTUS to the new president (however Trump stuck to his personal account).

I'm not sure how long that system had been in place though.

Re: Twitter to wipe Trump followers before handover

#4

Post by tinus_hn »

remram wrote: post #3
deadanon wrote: post #2

Interesting, I'm curious why a wipe of followers of a government office twitter account. Does twitter do that for other similar official accounts?

Yeah, when Obama was elected, @POTUS was renamed to @POTUS44 to give @POTUS to the new president (however Trump stuck to his personal account). I'm not sure how long that system had been in place though.

I think the tweets were archived to @POTUS44 but the followers remained.

Re: Twitter to wipe Trump followers before handover

#5

Post by remram »

tinus_hn wrote: post #4
remram wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, when Obama was elected, @POTUS was renamed to @POTUS44 to give @POTUS to the new president (however Trump stuck to his personal account). I'm not sure how long that system had been in place though.

I think the tweets were archived to @POTUS44 but the followers remained.

You are right, I remember another subtlety: if you followed @POTUS you were made to follow both @POTUS44 and @POTUS.

Re: Twitter to wipe Trump followers before handover

#6

Post by dragonwriter »

remram wrote: post #3
deadanon wrote: post #2

Interesting, I'm curious why a wipe of followers of a government office twitter account. Does twitter do that for other similar official accounts?

Yeah, when Obama was elected, @POTUS was renamed to @POTUS44 to give @POTUS to the new president (however Trump stuck to his personal account). I'm not sure how long that system had been in place though.

> Yeah, when Obama was elected, @POTUS was renamed to @POTUS44 to give @POTUS to the new president

@POTUS was archived to @POTUS44, but the followers remained with @POTUS (well, both accounts, actually.) This transition Twitter has declared they will archive @POTUS and other White House accounts and reset followers to 0, instead of retaining followers tas was done at the last transition.

> I'm not sure how long that system had been in place though.

@POTUS was launched May 18, 2015, so it's not like there was a prior transition to have set precedent.

Re: Twitter to wipe Trump followers before handover

#8

Post by robarr »

Per the CNN article

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/22/politics/biden-twitter-wh...

“Twitter will notify followers of these accounts to provide context that the content will be archived and allow them the choice to follow the Biden administration's new accounts," Pacilio said. "For example, people who follow @WhiteHouse will be notified that the account has been archived as @WhiteHouse45 and given the option to follow the new @WhiteHouse account."

Re: Twitter to wipe Trump followers before handover

#9

Post by leetcrew »

remram wrote: post #3
deadanon wrote: post #2

Interesting, I'm curious why a wipe of followers of a government office twitter account. Does twitter do that for other similar official accounts?

Yeah, when Obama was elected, @POTUS was renamed to @POTUS44 to give @POTUS to the new president (however Trump stuck to his personal account). I'm not sure how long that system had been in place though.

are all the variations of @POTUSXX reserved, or does a squatter get their account yanked every 4-8 years?

Re: Twitter to wipe Trump followers before handover

#10

Post by bastawhiz »

leetcrew wrote: post #9
remram wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, when Obama was elected, @POTUS was renamed to @POTUS44 to give @POTUS to the new president (however Trump stuck to his personal account). I'm not sure how long that system had been in place though.

are all the variations of @POTUSXX reserved, or does a squatter get their account yanked every 4-8 years?

Twitter has historically yanked usernames. An unofficial perk of being an employee, I've been told, is being able to yank a disused username for yourself. I know a few folks who have done it.
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