The Transition Of The US President's Social Media Accounts Always In The World Spotlight

Illustration (Pixabay)

JAKARTA - The President-elect of the United States (US) Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20, 2021. At the same time, Twitter and Facebook will also hand over official social media accounts for the US President, @POTUS.

Quoted from The Verge's page, Twitter will transfer ownership of the account to Biden on Inauguration Day. Although it is reported that Donald Trump is still reluctant to admit his defeat in the 2020 US presidential election.

"Twitter is actively preparing to support the transition to the White House's institutional Twitter account on January 20, 2021," a Twitter spokesman said in a statement.

Twitter said, the transition period for the president's official account was also carried out in 2017. It is overseen with the National Archives and Records Administration.

Not only @POTUS Twitter account. Other presidential accounts including @whitehouse, @VP for the US Vice President, and @FLOTUS for the First Lady will also be transferred.

Furthermore, the contents in all accounts will be archived before ownership is transferred. Then, the account will be reset, so that the number of tweets returns to zero.

The same will be done by Facebook and Instagram by moving the official POTUS account to the new platform. It's just that the difference is that the number of followers will be maintained as the new government changes.

"In 2017 we are working with the Obama administration and later, likewise, (working with) the Trump administration to ensure that the transfer of Facebook and Instagram accounts is smooth on January 20," Facebook told The Washington Post.

Privileges of US Presidents on Social Media

It should be noted that when Joe Biden was officially sworn in as President of the US, of course he would get a number of privileges. One of them is the privilege to be protected and freed in conveying a number of information, as long as it is in the public interest.

The 'newsworthy' or newsworthy policy has been in effect since 2019. With this privilege, both politicians and world leaders can submit information on Twitter and will be free from suspension or bans if they break the rules.

"Twitter's approach to world leaders, candidates and public officials is based on the principle that people should be able to choose to see what their leader is saying in a clear context. This means that we can apply warnings and labels, and limit engagement to specific tweets. "explained Twitter.

Because Trump lost to Joe Biden in the US Presidential Election, he automatically had to give up this privilege. So if in the future Trump, who is quite diligent in singing, violates the rules, Twitter may ban his account at any time.

"This means that we can apply warnings and labels, and limit engagement to certain tweets. This policy framework applies to current world leaders and candidates for office, and not citizens when they no longer hold these positions," Twitter wrote.

For example, when Twitter had to put a warning label on the @realDonaldTrump account not to post content that incited violence or misinformation. But Trump's privileges will expire on January 20.

US President Who Loves to Surf on Social Media

Barack Obama

So far, the 44th US President Barack Obama is arguably quite active on timelines, from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, to YouTube. Especially when accounts like @POTUS, @FLOTUS are closely attached to Obama as an individual.

Obama has for years been breaking through how to get politicians to connect with digital-savvy voters. He has used social media as a tool to educate, entertain and, no doubt, to shape his legacy.

In the year Obama took office, the White House joined forces with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo, iTunes, and MySpace. Even Obama's first tweet on Twitter with the @POTUS account was immediately liked by more than 32.9 million netizens.

This Election Day, everything is on the line. Our jobs. Our health care. Whether or not we get this pandemic under control. But here's the good news: today, you can choose change. You can elect @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris. Let's win this thing. pic.twitter.com/rvW2uOknpl

- Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 3, 2020

That same year, the White House posted its first official story on Snapchat promoting the president's state address. Michelle Obama as the first lady posted her first photo to Instagram.

At that time, White House officials said, social media became a new platform for the president to convey information. As well as press conferences and interviews with journalists.

During his tenure, Obama had 15 employees who directly managed his official social media accounts. Obama also quite often responds to messages and comments from netizens.

Donald Trump

As is known long before he was elected President of the US. Trump is known to be quite outspoken and diligent in tweeting on his personal Twitter account.

In fact, according to Trump communications director Sean Spicer when answering ABC News reporter questions. The Republican billionaire will continue his habit of Twitter.

"With all due respect, I think it's scary for the mainstream media that he has more than 45-plus million people following him on social media. He (Trump) can also have live conversations (on Twitter)," said Sean Spicer.

In the early days of his presidency, Trump was recorded to have tweeted more than 17,000 times. Trump's tweet responds to various issues and popular conversations on Twitter.

According to an investigation conducted by the New York Times, on November 2, 2019, Trump had retweeted 217 accounts that had not been verified by Twitter during his tenure. 145 of them prompted conspiracy issues, including more than two dozen content that Twitter has suspended.

Trump tweets labeled Twitter

At the beginning of the corona pandemic, Trump also frequently posted controversial statements. Lantara was considered to have violated social media policies, Facebook and Twitter were forced to suspend Trump's posts about COVID-19.

"We are placing a public interest notice in this Tweet for violating our Covid-19 Misleading Information Policy by making misleading health claims about COVID-19," stressed a Twitter spokesperson.

Most recently, Twitter has put many warning labels on Trump's tweets which are deemed invalid and spread misinformation. One of them was when Trump insisted on claiming he won the 2020 US presidential election and accused the existence of widespread election fraud.