Twitter, Joe Biden will become president without followers- Corriere.it

Twitter increasingly deus ex machina of American political communication (online). Tonight, Italian time, it was learned that when Joe biden inherit the official account reserved for the President of the United States – @Potus – start from zero followers. The following accumulated by Donald Trump and, before him, Barack Obama will therefore be eliminated. It had never happened before. We are talking about more than 33 million people, to whom Twitter will send a notification on January 20, 2021 to communicate the news, which in addition to @Potus involves the rest of the institutional accounts.

In 2016, the Trump administration absorbed all Obama supporters. In 2020, Twitter informed us that the Biden administration will have to start from scratch. he chirped the new president’s chief digital officer, Rob Flaherty, adding then that the mediation attempts have been returned to the sender. Nick Pacilio, Twitter’s chief communications officer, limited himself to chatting with Biden’s transition team on a number of issues related to White House account transfers.

It may not be around here.

Perch? As mentioned, the unedited decision: in 2017 Trump had entered the Oval Office with 13 million followers, while Obama had been transferred with an archive of his tweets on @ Potus44. Warning: we are talking about institutional accounts, not personal, of which Trump has continued to make massive use, reaching 88 and a half million followers with @RealDonadTrump. At the beginning of the mandate there were about 30 million. Therefore, it can be assumed – and especially the detractors of the Twitter election – that the fans of the former president (and the trolls) have focused on the personal profile, while the institutional must remain independent of the changes, even if they involve people who have. limited and distorted use of the platform.

A ReutersFacebook had said in November that nothing should change since 2017, both on the blue social network and on Instagram: Biden is expected to debut with the sequel to his predecessors. As for @RealDonadTrump, it will be interesting, starting on January 20, to see how Twitter applies its rules to the statements of the private citizen Trump. As we wrote in November, the profile could be suspended or canceled because it no longer enjoys the protections reserved for leaders.

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