How the Presidential Transition Works in the Social Media Age | Hacker News Reader

How the Presidential Transition Works in the Social Media Age

whitehouse.gov

156 pointsctingom73 comments

> The account will retain its more than 11 million followers, but start with no tweets on the timeline. @POTUS44, a newly created handle maintained by NARA, will contain all of President Obama’s tweets and will be accessible to the public on Twitter as an archive of President Obama’s use of the account.

Wait, how are they planning on doing this? Will this copy retain the timestamps and other metadata of the original tweets? I don't understand how this will work.

Edit: The more I think about this the more confusing it sounds. Will the tweets be deleted? Will all the links break? This seems like a very messy way of handling the transition, unless I'm misunderstanding how it will work.

I think the White House can get someone at Twitter to copy anything they need over.

Okay, so, what will this link do?

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/786254141182074880

Will it go to a page that says deleted? Is that what "no tweets on the timeline" means? Will each tweet link redirect to the copy?

> Okay, so, what will this link do?

> https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/786254141182074880

> Will it go to a page that says deleted? Is that what "no tweets on the timeline" means? Will each tweet link redirect to the copy?

I think the only important part of the URL is the ID number at the end. So, no matter what the username is changed to, as long as you have that unique numeric ID, it will go to the correct place. You can check this by changing the "POTUS" string to anything else you like, and sending your browser to that modified URL:

https://twitter.com/POTUS44/status/786254141182074880

Presently, the above URL redirects to the POTUS one you posted, but that just goes to show that the numeric ID is the important identifier.

Does twitter use the JSON api? AKA doesn't that url only have the username/status part for "discoverability" reasons, but realistically that tweet id at the end is the ACTUAL id for the tweet?

Same tweet id, just the username changed:

https://twitter.com/cryptoz/status/786254141182074880

Still goes to the same tweet.

https://twitter.com/potus/status/722572830592794624

@vallesmarineris is you right?

I'd imagine they'd just change[1] the username of the current account and create a new one with @POTUS handle.

[1] https://support.twitter.com/articles/14609

If they do that, then the new POTUS account will start at 0 followers (unless they have a special agreement with Twitter).

> If they do that, then the new POTUS account will start at 0 followers (unless they have a special agreement with Twitter).

They must have made some sort of arrangement. The article states:

The account will retain its more than 11 million followers, but start with no tweets on the timeline.

They just do a password reset on a Twitter admin account and have the NSA forward them the email.

I'd imagine they have a special agreement with Twitter anyway, at least to keep someone from programmatically grabbing @POTUS as soon as a script realized that @POTUS44 had been created.

If I understand correctly, Bill could end up with @FLOTUS?

First Lad of the United States

I have visions of Bill, passed out in a hammock on the White House lawn, surrounded by empties and cheeto packets.

Living the dream.

@FGOTUS?

Bill would be styled "First Gentleman", so FGOTUS?

Is he a member of the Gentry?[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentry

Well, neither have most previous first ladies been 'ladies' in that sense.

And remember he's also still called 'President Clinton' as an honorary title; as are all former presidents. So, they would be addressed as 'President and President Clinton' if Hillary won!

I used to work at the White House in the Presidential Personnel Office where I worked on an internal staffing tool to help fill political appointed positions across government. As we poured hours and contracting dollars into, we wondered aloud many times whether our work would go on into the next administration. The tool and the workflow behind it is pretty standard so there shouldn't be any reason why not. The general consensus was that if the next administration is a Democratic one, our work had a chance of staying alive.

One thing not mentioned in the article - everything archived by NARA ends up going to Obama's official library. I'm curious if and how they're going to make that accessible to the public.

What was the name of the internal staffing tool?

I worry about polarization to such an extent that administration N might spend millions of dollars to develop tools useful for the running of the nation and, upon transition, these tools are negated to administration M almost purely on an ideological bases.

In other words, we are not supposed to be developing software and tools at the White House, or anywhere else, to support a particular political party but rather in support of our nation.

Not saying this is what you have done. I just have a sense that if Trump wins those not sympathetic with the right might cripple the infrastructure that was developed or let it rot and become useless. This isn't good for anyone.

Do you have any evidence to support your worry? It seems to me that it's mostly unfounded. Nothing like what you describe has ever happened in the past.

Well, there was that time when the outgoing administration removed the 'W' keys from many of the keyboards and did other damage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/12/us/white-house-vandalized-...

Given the animosity of the Democrats towards Trump, if Trump wins, I would say there is a non-zero chance that some petty vandalism will also likely occur.

Maybe the Ws were just mementos. I wonder whether any of them have shown up on eBay.

You should watch the TV show The West Wing.

https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-European-parliament-move-...

Most of the Parliament would like to move the seat to Brussels because most other European institutions (notably the Commission) are there, but France would not agree to give up the Strasbourg seat.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/future-eu/news/auditors-put...

Every year, the European Parliament meets for 12 four-day part-sessions in Strasbourg and six additional two-day part-sessions in Brussels.

Roughly €114 million is spent every year to move the European Parliament between its Brussels and Strasbourg seats every month, according to a new assessment by the European Court of Auditors. EurActiv Germany reports.

That’s not political polarization, that’s nation states being egoistical dicks (as they frequently are).

At any rate, it's completely unrelated to the topic at hand and not remotely an example of anything that was discussed.

It's politicians being petty to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars of tax payer money wasted per year. "Not remotely an example of anything that was discussed?" It may not be obvious from the outside, but the feeling for us tax payers is very similar. These are not just random nation states; they're supposed to be team members, and work together. But they'd rather score points with their own little sub groups by not yielding to the "other guys", thereby disadvantaging everyone. Sound familiar?

Someone would have to start tracking this stuff to have proper evidence: I'm not sure the studies have been done.

However, I don't think it is unfounded. For some years we've had a congress set on refusing things Obama is for - even if they are wanted by the people. They are presently intent on appealing so-called 'Obamacare' instead of sitting down and working on it to make it better. They seem to have lost the ability to, you know, make compromises. They seem bent on un-doing anything that the other party has done.

These are the same folks that will legislate things so that they look good, but then fail to fund it - basically rendering it useless. And i'm pretty sure things like this happen at city and state levels as well. It certainly appears so at times, anyway.

There is a big difference between gridlock due to legitimate political disagreements(1) and the dumping of useful apolitical software just because it happened to be written when the other party was in power.

1. It's interesting that you chose to use Obamacare as something that is "wanted by the people" when a majority of Americans disapprove of the law. http://www.people-press.org/2016/04/27/more-americans-disapp...

I took the above content to mean that a Democratic president would already have ties to the Whitehouse, and maybe be familiar w/the tool already, hence more comfortable with it and willing to keep using. It didn't read to me like an ideological motivation. Rather it's like when companies get a new CEO they come in and change everything and move the company headquarters to be closer to their house. Or when many programmers first start working with a new codebase. "What the hell? That last guy had no idea what he was doing!"

What's the plan for the 47th+ Presidents?

- https://twitter.com/potus46

- https://twitter.com/potus47

- https://twitter.com/potus48

- https://twitter.com/potus49

- https://twitter.com/potus50

- ...

Twitter has yanked names on behalf of celebrities in the past.

That's assuming Twitter will be around for 47th+ presidents.

President Anthony Weiner will ditch Twitter and instead use Snapchat to connect with his underage followers.

"the handle @POTUS will be made available to the 45th President of the United States on January 20, 2017... This will also be the case for other Twitter handles, including... @FLOTUS..."

So if Hillary Clinton wins, they're planning on scrubbing the FLOTUS handle's tweets and giving the account to Bill Clinton without a name change?

Someone else seems to have registered https://twitter.com/FGOTUS (but judging from the content of the tweets there, might be quite happy to turn it over to the administration in that case).

First Lord of the US?

First Lad of the US, of course.

> FLOTUS

First Live-in-significant-other of the United States?

First Longtime-companion of the United States?

First Life-partner of the United States?

First Lover of the United States? :P

There's got to be a good gender neutral L word to insert here...

In Argentina, the previous president (Cristina Kirchner) refused to give up the twitter account @CasaRosadaAR.

http://www.latintimes.com/pulse/cristina-fernandez-de-kirchn...

Hi I want to point out that a while back "Barack Obama" created a github account.. press releases went out "Obama learns to code" ... but then the github account went down and was replaced by a similarly named one like presidentobama_bot or something like that. Sorry I don't remember the exact string but it was odd.

I don't understand the why of this transition. Why does it need to be moved to a new account? Why can't it all just stay on the same account?

Maybe so people can't claim the new president said something they didn't? When you change avatar and name, old tweets update their design.

The records created by a given Presidential administration are controlled by that administration, even after it's in office. It's unlikely that Twitter or most internet services have a notion of an identity being passed from one administration to the next, preventing the "new" administration from changing or deleting the records created by the previous administration.

Besides the @POTUS handle, there will also be a @realPOTUS representing whoever thinks he or she is supposedly the real president but the election was rigged.

Everyone here is talking about what is going to happen if Hillary is elected.

Is @realDonaldTrump really going to give up tweeting from his account if elected? I'd be surprised.

One for official business, one for bringing the bantz and keeping the feud with Rosie going.

In a hypothetical situation where Donald Trump is elected President of the United States, your concern is:

> Is @realDonaldTrump really going to give up tweeting from his account

The page says it will archive Obama's snapchats. Now, I thought the #1 feature of SnapChat was that they are deleted afterwards. So how does that work? Did Obama screenshot every SnapChat he made?

I'm guessing you've never used Snapchat before? You can save your own Snaps before sending them out. So that's prob what has been happening.

Also Snapchat has a permanent Memories feature now

Facebook.com/ObamaWhiteHouse is a naming collision waiting to happen (president Michelle?)

Go with Facebook.com/whitehouse44

Any kind of political dynasty -- whether it be Kennedys, Obamas or Bushes -- should give voters pause. I don't understand the infatuation with neo-royalty.

Sure, what does that have to do with the technical mistake of failing to plan for naming collisions?

Hmm, with all the renaming and so forth, so many links will rot. >.<

Seems like adopting ClintonWhiteHouse.gov etc (the alternative is not something I wish to ponder) from the get go would make more sense.

In the case of tweets, they redirect based on the ID and not the username so those links at least would endure.

wait a minute... the President is communicating on a private server account? not via a "secure" government server? someone tell Comey quick so he can write another letter to Congress revealing this madness. We still have a week left.

I wonder if any other government employees are too. I wonder if any are passing classified info thru them, especially in DM's.

Last I checked Obama never sent and received classified information through his Twitter account, nor deleted anything from his Twitter account after learning it would likely be investigated.

Hillary never deleted anything after she learned of the investigation.

Her lawyers were given specific instructions and they followed them.

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