Following the inauguration of President Joseph Biden, the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse Twitter Inc. accounts will have zero followers, the company announced today.

“The accounts will not automatically retain their existing followers,” Twitter said in a statement. “Instead, Twitter will notify followers of these accounts to provide context that the content will be archived and allow them the choice to follow the Biden administration’s new accounts. For example, people who follow @WhiteHouse will be notified that the account has been archived as @WhiteHouse45 and given the option to follow the new @WhiteHouse account.”

This is not what happened in 2017 when the Trump administration inherited the @POTUS account from the Obama administration. When that happened, all the followers of Obama’s account were inherited by Trump, although all of the tweets were archived.

Rumors soon surfaced that Trump had refused to hand over the keys to the Biden administration, although Rob Flaherty, Biden’s digital director, soon tweeted that the decision was made by Twitter and Twitter only. “Just to be clear: this is Twitter’s decision, not Trump’s,” he said.

Flaherty also said the Biden administration wasn’t happy about losing the 32 million followers on that account, but after some pushback he was told the decision was final. Twitter hasn’t said why the change was made, although according to The Wall Street Journal, during the transfer in 2017 there were some “technical glitches” and some complaints from Twitter users.

When Inauguration Day arrives, those following one of the accounts will receive a notification telling them the accounts have been archived. They will then be given the option to follow the new accounts, according to Twitter. The company didn’t say what those notifications will look like.

As for Trump’s @realDonaldTrump account, with 88 million followers, that will have to adhere to the same policies as everyone else. Currently, the account faces less scrutiny from Twitter, so fewer tweets are taken down and there’s not much chance of a suspension.

When Trump becomes a private citizen, the privileges will stop. Trump’s tweets have been labeled in the past for breaking the rules, but if he posts content in the future that violates Twitter’s policies, he will very likely face harsher penalties.

Photo: Nathan Borror/Flickr