Biden team clashes with Twitter as it launches new account

Joe Biden’s transition team flipped the switch on a new Twitter account for the 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 Jan. 20: @POTUS. In a change in practice from 2017, when President Trump entered office, Twitter Inc. plans to reset both the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse official accounts to zero followers for Biden.The two accounts currently have a massive audience — 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 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.“They are advantaging President Trump’s first days of the administration over ours,” Rob Flaherty, the transition’s digital director who will be director of digital strategy in the Biden White House,…
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