How Trump Could Officially Claim President Obama’s Twitter Followers

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U.S. President Barack Obama is set to lose his Twitter followers, according to a White House bulletin which details how the administration is looking to “preserve and pass on the digital history of the President Obama administration.” Obama has 11.1 million followers on @POTUS, and with him vacating the office in January, the account will be transferred to the next president, notes Gizmodo.

Donald Trump by Gage Skidmore on 2011-02-10 12:47:12

Digital transfer of power

The White House bulletin gave the details about how the digital transfer of power on social media will take place, including an explanation of how the president’s Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram accounts and followers will be transferred to the next President. This is applicable for all the elections in the future. Now it remains to be seen who will take the POTUS account over from President Obama: Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

The Twitter handle @ POTUS will be transferred to the 45th president of the United States on January 20. The account’s approximately 11 million followers will remain, but it will start with no tweets on the timeline. Anyone who wants to revisit President Obama Tweets can access it on the handle @POTUS44, a newly-created handle maintained by NARA.

President Obama’s tweets will also be archived at NARA and will be available in a similar way as all Presidential records are, notes Gizmodo. Similarly, the Twitter accounts for the White House, vice president, first lady and other associated accounts will convert to WhiteHouse44, VP44, FLOTUS44 and so on, the White House’s statement says. The accounts with “44” will remain under the control of Joe Biden, Michelle Obama, and their staffers.

Big change for Twitter users

Obama is quite fond of connecting with people through different social networking websites, and therefore, he was the first president to have Snapchat, YouTube and Facebook Live accounts.

It could be a big change for those who follow Twitter day and night and do not miss a single tweet from those they follow. Right now Trump has 12.8 million followers, making his account one of the most active political accounts in the United States. However, the good news is that President Obama will retain all the rights to his personal account and can retain all 78.5 million followers who are following @Barack Obama.

Even if Trump wins the election, he will still be lagging the popularity of President Obama if the number of followers on Twitter is the criteria.

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