2016 wasn’t the best year for Twitter. From having to deal with issues of abuse on the service and all sorts of turmoil behind closed doors, the company needed to kick off 2017 on a high note –It did not.
There are a lot of people out there that aren’t thrilled about President Trump and feel nervous about being “forced” into doing things by the new leader. So when several thousands of users on Twitter noticed that they were suddenly and mysteriously following @POTUS against their will, they were none too thrilled.
Hell, many people freaked right the fuck out about the whole thing. Imagine being someone opposed to any president or political leader only to wake up to find that you have been forced to follow them. This was such a big deal that Twitter has officially apologized.
But just how many people were affected by this little technical goof you ask? Well, Twitter themselves say that 560,000 users were forced to follow @POTUS. That’s a big number and if I were in a joking mood I’d mention that was more people than attended the inauguration, but I wont, even though I just did. Shit.
The transition was going to hit some bumps along the way causing people who unfollowed @POTUS and moved themselves over to @POTUS44, but there a number of users complaining that they never followed @POTUS in the first place. Either way, it might be a good idea to jump on Twitter to check things out.
All: we investigated what happened here, and we made some mistakes (which have been corrected). Some context first. https://t.co/W1n3Xs6LaN
— jack (@jack) January 21, 2017
You can read the official statement on the matter below:
The Obama Administration worked with all their platforms to craft a transition plan. Because @POTUS is an institutional account (not personal) they felt it only fair to transition accounts with followers intact, but 0 tweets. We kicked off that plan at 12p Eastern yesterday.
If you were following @POTUS before 12pET, by end of day you’d be following *two* accounts: @POTUS44 (44th Admin) and @POTUS (45th Admin). Two issues were reported during the day which we spent the night confirming and have now corrected:
1. People who followed @POTUS44 (Obama Admin) after 12pET were mistakenly set to also follow @POTUS (Trump Admin).
2. Some people who unfollowed @POTUS in the past were mistakenly marked to now follow @POTUS
We believe this affected about 560,000 people. This was a mistake, it wasn’t right, we own it, and we apologize. No excuses.
This also affected other official Administration accounts like @VP, @WhiteHouse, and @PressSec. 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.
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