Twitter has given US President-elect Joe Biden a fresh POTUS account, which will start with zero followers.
This Twitter decision to transfer the POTUS account from Donald Trump to Joe Biden with zero followers departs from its previous move, where Trump inherited 13 million or so followers from Barack Obama.
New POTUS account
Prior to Biden's inauguration day on January 20, the new account will be named @PresElectBiden but will be transformed into the official @POTUS or President of the United States account after the President-elect is inaugurated.
Biden's team was informed of the move less than a month ago and were unhappy with it. Twitter did not give any explanation but wrote a blog post saying: "These institutional accounts will not automatically retain the followers from the prior administration."
However, the social media firm explained that people who previously followed the official @POTUS and @VP or Vice-President accounts, as well as the personal accounts of Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris, will be notified to follow the new official ones.
The president-elect's group also registered @FLOTUSBiden for the future first lady, Jill Biden, and a new official account, @SecondGentleman, for Harris' husband Doug Emhoff.
After the transition, the official @POTUS account under Trump will be archived under @POTUS45 although he rarely used it in favor of his personal account.
Suspension of Trump account
Last week,  Twitter decided to place a permanent suspension on President Trump from its platform. It announced the permanent suspension on Trump after it initially suspended his account for 24 hours following violent protests by his supporters on the US Capitol.
Twitter said: "After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence."
"In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action," the firm added.
Initially, Twitter gave Trump a temporary suspension after he repeatedly made false claims of election fraud, as well as posting a video message saying "I love you" to supporters attacking the US Capitol and calling them "patriots".
The company’s most recent decision followed two tweets by Trump, which Twitter claimed violated its policy against glorification of violence.
Twitter pointed out that "these two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks."
In response to the permanent ban, Trump used the POTUS account to say he will build his own platform.
"As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me," Trump wrote in a series of tweets that are no longer visible on the social media service.
Twitter chief executive officer (CEO) Jack Dorsey said the permanent ban on Trump was the right thing to do.
While Dorsey justified the decision, he expressed sadness over it, saying there were "extraordinary and untenable circumstances" surrounding the permanent suspension.
He also admitted that the ban was partly due to Twitter’s failure to do enough to foster "healthy conversation" across its platforms. The decision has garnered both praise and criticism.