Biden campaign says Twitter will erase followers from POTUS account

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The digital director for president-elect Joe BidenJoe BidenCongress Passes .3T Coronavirus Aid, Government Funding Deal House Conservatives Crawl Into White House To Schedule Challenging Election Results House Passes Massive Spending Deal, Making Senate More VoteThe presidential campaign said on Tuesday that Twitter has told the Biden team that it will erase followers from the official POTUS and WhiteHouse Twitter accounts before handing them over to the Biden administration.

The move would be different from what the social media platform did in 2016 when transferring the accounts to President TrumpDonald Trump McConnell: Senate returns Dec. 29 for possible Trump veto power.The administration of former President Obama, Rob Flaherty, the digital director of the Biden campaign, said.

In 2016, the Trump administrator absorbed all of President Obama’s Twitter followers @POTUS and @White House – at the insistence of Team 44, ”Flaherty tweeted Tuesday. “In 2020, Twitter informed us that Biden’s administration must start from scratch from now on.”

Obama was the country’s 44th president.

Twitter spokesman Nicholas Pacilio would not confirm Flaherty’s statement, saying the social media platform is still in talks with the Biden transition team over the transfer of the accounts.

“Twitter is in constant discussion with Biden’s transition team on a number of aspects related to White House account transfers,” Pacilio said in a statement.

Flaherty doubled his comment In response to Pacilio’s statement, he tweeted that he is “happy to share the email thread where we went back and were told this was unequivocal.”

Pacilio replied, “Hey Rob, I’m not familiar with it!”

Asked for further comment on whether the Biden transition team is pushing Twitter to transfer the accounts’ followers, a Biden spokesperson pointed to Flaherty’s tweets.

According to Biden’s transition team, Twitter will issue a one-time notification suggesting users who follow Biden and vice president Kamala HarrisKamala Harris Pat Robertson says Trump lives in “ alternate reality ” and Biden becomes President Harris stumps for Georgia Senate candidates: “ 2020 isn’t over until January 5 ” The Hill’s 12:30 Report: Congress to fund government, passes COVID -19 aid package MORE On Twitter, follow the “transition46” account which will be renamed the WhiteHouse account, but the POTUS, FLOTUS and “PressSec” accounts will start from zero followers.

The POTUS account has 33.2 million followers and the WhiteHouse account has an additional 26 million followers.

Even combined, the two official accounts have fewer followers than President Trump’s 88.5 million on his personal account.

Trump has continued to tweet from his personal account with unsubstantiated allegations of his electoral defeat, which were not supported by the court.

The allegations have often brought him into conflict with Twitter, which it has labeled a number of Trump’s posts for containing election fraud allegations that are “disputed”.

Once he leaves office, Trump can see some of his future posts being deleted.

A Twitter spokesperson previously confirmed that Trump’s account will be treated like any other account once he leaves office.

“Twitter’s approach to world leaders, candidates and government officials is based on the principle that people should be able to choose to see what their leaders say with clear context. This means we can apply warnings and labels and limit engagement to particular Tweets.” the spokesman said in November, “This policy framework applies to current world leaders and candidates for office, and not to private citizens when they are no longer in these positions.”

Trump may also be at risk of losing his blue tick based on Twitter’s revamped verification process that will begin early next year.

Twitter last month released a draft of its new verification policy criteria, including details on ways an account could lose its blue badge.

The company said an account may not be verified if the individual is no longer in the position for which the account was initially verified, such as an elected official leaving office, and if the account repeatedly violates Twitter’s rules.

– Updated at 1:27 PM

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