Washington (AFP)
Twitter will hand over control of @POTUS, the presidential social media account, to Joe Biden when he is sworn in on inauguration day, even though President Donald Trump has not admitted defeat in the presidential election, have US media reported on Friday.
The social network "is actively preparing for the transition of institutional Twitter accounts of the White House on January 20, 2021", its spokesperson Nick Pacilio told Politico in an email.
The operation is carried out in collaboration with the National Archives, as was the case in 2017, he said.
All tweets posted to @POTUS, @FLOTUS, @VP and other official profiles will be archived.
The accounts will then be reset and handed over to the new White House administration on the same day.
Mr Trump, who still has not admitted his November 3 defeat, built his political figure on Twitter and, later, to govern - although he mainly uses his personal @realDonaldTrump account, of which the $ 88 million subscribers far exceed the 32 million presidential account @POTUS.
@POTUS is mostly used to retweet Donald Trump's personal account, as well as the White House and other accounts.
Its governance through tweets and its brutal announcements on the platform are the subject of repeated complaints.
Twitter is under pressure to curb the president's spread of false information and conspiracy theories.
Since the election, the platform has added warning messages to many of Donald Trump's tweets, as he continues to claim that he won the election and that his Democratic opponent's victory is linked to a massive fraud, without providing any evidence.
Joe Biden, on the other hand, is a much calmer Twitter user.
He sent fewer than 7,000 tweets to his 19 million subscribers, compared to 58,000 for Trump.
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