The official transfer of power was made between former president Barack Obama and 45th president of the United States Donald Trump Friday during the inauguration ceremony.
While the leader of free world switches every four to eight years, social media is a fairly new power tool only recently used by Obama.
Obama was the first "social media president", according to the White House. He was the first president to use @POTUS on Twitter, the first to go live on Facebook from the Oval Office and the first to use a filter on Snapchat.
Over the past eight years the Vice President, First Lady and the White House have also all used social media platforms as a tool to connect to U.S. citizens.
Now that the Obama administration has come to an end, the presidential digital accounts must change to fit the new administration.
What happens to the former president's social media content during a transfer of power?
There are three main goals for a smooth social media transition, according to the White House. First, all material created under the Obama administration will be archived with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Tweets, snaps and all online content will be preserved with NARA. Second, the White House is working to ensure the materials continue to be accessible on the platform they were created on, allowing real time access to the content. Last, the White House says they're making sure the accounts they've created can still be used and developed by the incoming administration.
How will the content be transferred?
The Twitter account @POTUS was made available to President Trump's administration Jan. 20, 2017, according to the White House. The account will retain its 11 million followers but will have a clean timeline, meaning no tweets will be available to see. A new handle @POTUS44 will contain all of Obama's tweets and be used as a public archive of his use of the account. The tweets will also be archived at NARA to be preserved like other presidential records.
The same transfer will be done for other Twitter handles such as @FLOTUS, @PressSec and @VP who will also receive new accounts, ending in "44" so the material is accessible to the public.
For Instagram and Facebook, the new administration will gain access to the White House username, URL, and retain the followers but such as with the Twitter account, start with no content on the timeline, according to the White House.
Archives of the content posted to the Obama Facebook and Instagram can still be checked out at Instagram.com/ObamaWhiteHouse and Facebook.com/ObamaWhiteHouse. Facebook accounts for President Obama and the Vice President and the Instagram accounts belonging to the First Lady and Vice President will be moved to new “44” usernames and preserved by NARA.
A similar approach is being used for Tumblr, Medium and YouTube.
