Adding a sheen of legitimacy to his Presidency, Trump will soon begin to tweet uncontrollably from the @POTUS account.
Recode shares the story:
Starting Friday, @POTUS, the official Twitter account created by The White House and reserved for the sitting president, will change hands from Barack Obama’s team to Trump’s administration.
Included in the exchange: @POTUS’s 13.6 million followers.
That means that if you currently follow @POTUS under the Obama administration, you’ll continue to follow the account as it moves under Trump’s control. The stream of tweets will be wiped clean so Trump and his team can start fresh.
Twitter will also automatically follow a new account for you — @POTUS44 — where Obama’s stream of tweets live. The same process will take place for a number of other high-profile accounts, like @FLOTUS (First Lady Michelle Obama) and @WhiteHouse.
So we know how the accounts will change hands, but we don’t know how Trump will use @POTUS, if at all. Earlier this week, Trump suggested he’d continue to use his personal Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, which has more followers (more than 20.3 million at last count).
But he also suggested that he’d soon have 280 characters to tweet, double Twitter’s 140 character limit, an apparent nod to using both accounts. So who knows.
