Team Biden starts @PresElectBiden

 

Team Biden starts @PresElectBiden while clashing with Twitter

Joe Biden’s transition team flipped the switch on a new Twitter account for the US president-elect on Thursday night, while clashing with the social media company over its decision to deny the incoming administration millions of existing White House followers.

Biden’s transition opened @PresElectBiden in order to start building a following for one of the official accounts the new president will inherit at noon on 20 January. In a change in practice from 2017, when President Donald Trump entered office, Twitter plans to reset both the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse official accounts to zero followers for Biden.

The two accounts currently have a massive audience that is nearly 60 million followers combined, though there is overlap. Trump got a head start in 2017 when he inherited about 12 million followers of @POTUS from President Barack Obama’s tenure, plus millions of followers from other official accounts. Though Trump used his personal account, @realDonaldTrump, as his primary social media mouthpiece throughout his presidency, Biden’s aides think it’s unfair Twitter isn’t handing over followers along with the official accounts.

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