Twitter users received a surprise glitch on inauguration day, when many found their accounts following @POTUS and @FLOTUS handles that they had never followed in the first place — or even had made a point to unfollow. On Jan. 20, the accounts transitioned to the hands of the Trump administration as a result of the new presidency.
Although followers of the @POTUS and @FLOTUS accounts were expected to automatically continue to follow the handles after their transition of ownership, many unsatisfied Twitter users who said they were never following the accounts to begin with tweeted complaints to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, saying their accounts suddenly were forced to follow the handles. Others tweeted that, after unfollowing the Twitter handles, their accounts were forced to follow the handles again.
Dorsey responded to many of the complaints, tweeting that there was a script created to migrate followers of the accounts, which is “taking some time” but will eventually permanently unfollow for the users who found their accounts refollowing the handles.
But for the irritated users, who never followed POTUS and FLOTUS in the first place, Dorsey responded that the issue is still being looked into. Comedian Margaret Cho tweeted her concern to Dorsey, who later responded, “def would not be ok. Should have only migrated followers of original POTUS. We’re on it.”
@margaretcho def would not be ok. Should have only migrated followers of original POTUS. We’re on it.
— jack (@jack) January 21, 2017
@JMScomedy @margaretcho @POTUS @WhiteHouse that what I said we are investigating.
— jack (@jack) January 21, 2017
@margaretcho looking into reports of people not following @POTUS. For those that did, we had a migration plan: https://t.co/czwOzneral
— jack (@jack) January 21, 2017
The original migration plan was for the @POTUS, @FLOTUS and @VP handles to transition to Donald Trump, Melania Trump and Mike Pence, respectively. Barack and Michelle Obama now can be found online at @POTUS44 and @FLOTUS44 (@BarackObama will be run by the former president’s Organizing for Action staff).
Twitter tweeted from its support account that its team is working to resolve the issue: “We are aware of the issue with migrating @Potus followers and investigating. More soon.”
We are aware of the issue with migrating @POTUS followers and investigating. More soon.
— Twitter Support (@Support) January 21, 2017
While there may have been some complications during the @POTUS transition today, the issue is being resolved.
— Twitter Support (@Support) January 21, 2017
A day later, Dorsey apologized and tweeted out that the technical issues affecting about 560,000 accounts has been resolved. He explained that those who followed Obama’s twitter handle @POTUS44 were mistakenly set to also follow the @POTUS account and that people who unfollowed @POTUS were mistakenly set to follow the handle again.
Two issues were reported during the day which we spent the night confirming and have now corrected:
— jack (@jack) January 21, 2017
1. People who followed @POTUS44 (Obama Admin) after 12pET were mistakenly set to also follow @POTUS (Trump Admin).
— jack (@jack) January 21, 2017
2. Some people who unfollowed @POTUS in the past were mistakenly marked to now follow @POTUS
— jack (@jack) January 21, 2017
We believe this affected about 560,000 people. This was a mistake, it wasn’t right, we own it, and we apologize. No excuses.
— jack (@jack) January 21, 2017
We believe we’ve corrected all accounts to reflect your follow/unfollow intent. We’re sorry for the mistakes made here, and thank you all.
— jack (@jack) January 21, 2017
Sun, Jan. 22: Updated with response from Jack Dorsey
