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Comment by cryptoz | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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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 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?

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