Just after new Indian President, Ramnath Kovind makes his Twitter debut, the majority of digital media platforms including Republic, TOI, Zee and news channels started shouting how the new President gains 3 million followers in no time. Not only that, some media channels also claimed that President Kovind got 3 million plus followers within few minutes.
The irony is, even such big media platforms with huge followers don’t even put a single effort to do a basic fact check, a foremost principle of journalism. There is no truth in the reports that President of India, Kovind got such huge followers in one hour.
So, what is the truth?
Actually, the official Twitter accounts of the President, Vice President, and various Ministries like PMOIndia are seen as digital assets of the government and the followers gets transferred with new people taking the charge. So, the new President, Ram Nath Kovind just got the followers of official President of India account.
On the other hand, as President Pranab Mukherjee is the 13th President of India, his official account history will be archived with the handle @POI13. Now, all embedded tweets from President Mukherjee will automatically link to @POI13 for continuity and preservation of the digital history.
President Mukherjee's official Tweets are now archived at @POI13, his personal account is @CitiznMukherjee.
— Twitter India (@TwitterIndia) July 25, 2017
More about the digital transition of the President of India's official account here: https://t.co/8X7nEaubbD
— Twitter India (@TwitterIndia) July 25, 2017
Apart from that, people who were following President Mukherjee will now automatically follow, @RashtrapatiBhvn and @POI13. But then, users who do not wish to follow either account may unfollow manually. People who want to follow Pranab Mukherjee can engage with him on his personal Twitter account, @CitiznMukherjee.
The new @RashtrapatiBhvn account started with zero tweets and all the followers of the previous account were transferred. President Mukherjee had 3+ million followers and this is the reason why it appears that President Kovind has gained 3 million followers.
Precisely, President Kovind got all the followers of President Pranab Mukherjee and thus did not get new 3 million plus followers in hours.
