More than a few headlines surrounding the 2016 presidential elections have come from the candidates' use of Twitter .
But
what happens to the presidential Twitter account (which, at last count,
boasts 11.1 million followers) after Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton
become the 45th president of the United States on January 20.
Officials
have decided that once the new president is sworn in, they will inherit
the account - along with all those millions of followers.
However, the slate will be wiped clean - allowing Clinton or Trump to forge ahead with their own presidential tweets.
All of Obama's 317 tweets will be archived by the US National
Archives and Records Administration (NARA) under the new handle of
@POTUS44.
A similar fate will befall all the other White House
Twitter accounts, such as Michelle Obama's @FLOTUS and Joe Biden's @VP.
The same will also be true for Obama's Instagram and Facebook accounts.
Thousands
of photos and hours of video clips of the current president will also
be archived and, eventually, made available for people to download.
"Over the past eight years, the President, Vice President, First
Lady, and the White House have used social media and technology to
engage with people around the country and the world on the most
important issues of our time," explained the White House's deputy chief
digital officer, Kori Schulman, in a
statement .
"This digital infrastructure is an asset not just for the next president but for all future presidents to build off of.
"From
tweets to snaps, all of the material we've published online will be
preserved with NARA just as previous administrations have done with
records ranging from handwritten notes to faxes to emails."
Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are vocal on Twitter. The former
boasts 10.1 million followers while the latter reaches 12.8 million.
