The White House announced its plans for transitioning the Obama administration’s social media accounts to the next president of the U.S.
To start, the president’s Twitter handle, @POTUS, will be given to the new president Jan. 20, 2017. The account will keep its 11 million followers, but it will have no tweets on its timeline. President Barack Obama’s tweets will be viewable on a new Twitter account, @POTUS44, which will be maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration. In addition, President Obama’s tweets will be archived at NARA “in the same manner as all other presidential records.”
The White House said this will also be the case for other Twitter handles, including @WhiteHouse, @FLOTUS, @PressSec and @VP. Finally, individual official Twitter accounts, such as @KS44, will be maintained by NARA after the transition, and they will be available for the public to view.
Meanwhile, the White House Instagram and Facebook pages will also be transferred to the next president’s team. The Instagram and Facebook pages will keep their followers, but the timelines will start clear. The content from the Obama White House Instagram and Facebook accounts will remain viewable at Instagram.com/ObamaWhiteHouse and Facebook.com/ObamaWhiteHouse.
In addition, the White House said the Facebook accounts for President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, as well as the Instagram accounts belonging to First Lady Michelle Obama and Bid...