Now that Barack Obama is no longer the President of the United States, it also means that his Twitter account @POTUS no longer belongs to him, but instead it now belongs to newly installed US President Donald Trump. Since not everyone agrees with Trump’s opinions and policies, it’s not surprising that some users have decided to unfollow the @POTUS account.
I absolutely unfollowed @POTUS last night but I just checked and I’m following again. What.
— Janna Zagari (@jannazagari) January 21, 2017
However it seems that Twitter isn’t letting these users unfollow the account. According to a multitude of user reports, Twitter users are claiming that despite unfollowing @POTUS, they later discovered that they were following the account again. The good news is that this is not some conspiracy to get you to follow @POTUS, but rather it seems to be some kind of bug according to the official Twitter account.
We are aware of the issue with migrating @POTUS followers and investigating. More soon.
— Twitter Support (@Support) January 21, 2017
Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey has also acknowledged the issue and said that they are looking into it at the moment. In any case if you’ve discovered that you’re still following @POTUS despite unfollowing it, give it awhile and try again. In the meantime if you were following @POTUS, you will also now automatically follow @POTUS44 which is basically Obama’s archived Twitter account.
Other Twitter accounts have similarly been converted, such as @FLOTUS44, @ObamaWhiteHouse, @VP44, and @PressSec44, so don’t be surprised if you see an increase in your “following” numbers.
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