Joe Biden takes over @POTUS Twitter account after inauguration

PTI, Jan 21, 2021, 9:12 AM IST

Washington: Joe Biden on Wednesday took over the official @POTUS Twitter account of the President of the United States after his inauguration.

The 78-year-old veteran Democratic leader’s Twitter account @PresElectBiden transformed into @POTUS after he took the oath of office at the West Front of the US Capitol as the 46th President of the United States in a historic but scaled down ceremony under the unprecedented security umbrella of thousands of security personnel.

POTUS is the official acronym for President of the United States; FLOTUS refers to the First Lady.

Twitter transferred institutional accounts such as @POTUS, @FLOTUS, @VP and @WhiteHouse to the Biden administration after the inauguration.

These accounts are reserved for the official government use by the current administration as they do not belong to any individual.

When previous president Donald Trump took the office in 2017, then-President Barack Obama”s official accounts were transferred to him with his followers intact.

This time, these official accounts have lost tens of millions of followers. However, those dropped will receive notifications that they can follow them.

As per Twitter, the users are given a choice to whether follow the new accounts or not.

Trump”s @POTUS account has been archived as @POTUS45 in the same way Obama’s account was archived as @POTUS44.

On January 15, Biden’s Twitter account had tweeted that the account will become the official account of the US President on January 20.

“Folks — This will be the account for my official duties as President. At 12:01 PM on January 20th, it will become @POTUS. Until then, I”ll be using @JoeBiden. And while you”re here, follow @FLOTUSBiden @SenKamalaHarris @SecondGentleman and @Transition46,” it had said.

Kamala Harris, soon after she was sworn-in as America’s first woman Vice President during a historic inauguration at the West Front of the Capitol, tweeted from her official Twitter account soon after the inauguration.

“Ready to serve,” she said in the tweet.

“For the people—always,” Harris tweeted from her personal account before the inauguration.

“I’m here today because of the women who came before me,” she said in another tweet along with a video which featured a number of Black women, including her Tamil mother.

The inauguration was held under the watch of more than 25,000 National Guards, who have transformed the capital into a garrison city, mainly because of the threat of more violent protests by the supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump, who became the first president to skip his successor”s inauguration since Andrew Johnson in 1869. Outgoing Vice President Mike Pence attended the ceremony.