Chandigarh: Did the new President of India really get three million new followers on Twitter within one hour of his taking oath?
The big pronouncements in the mainstream national media would have us believe so. The spin doctors of the Government went overboard to quote this figure in the public domain to prove the popularity of the President as soon as he took oath of office on July 25. As a matter of fact, we all felt proud to have a President whose massive popularity resulted in 30 lakh Indians ‘Following’ him on Twitter in one hour! (If you are running a Twitter account you will know how hard it is get even one person to follow you in the routine course of events).
But alas! President Kovind really did not get three million followers in one hour. In fact the number of people who chose to follow him after he became President could arguably run into a few thousands at the most.
As per an official post put up on its blog by Twitter India, President Kovind has merely ‘inherited’ the followers of the earlier President Pranab Mukherjee. The ex-President was the first President of India to connect to the public with an official account on Twitter using the handle @POI13. This official account of President Mukherjee had 3.32 million followers as of July 24.
As per the Twitter blog titled ‘The Digital Transition of the President of India’s Official Account’ the social networking behemoth in a bid to ensure digital continuity in the official Twitter account from one President to another migrated all the followers of @POI13 to the new handle – @rashtrapatibhvn – created for use by the new President. The new official handle makes sense because @POI13 was a handle specific to the presidency of Pranab Mukherjee (he was the 13th President of India.)
But what happens to @POI13 after this? Twitter says that it has decided to archive all embedded tweets made by President Mukherjee and freeze the handle. Here is what the Twitter blog says:
‘All embedded Tweets from President Mukherjee will automatically link to @POI13 for continuity and preservation of the digital history of his administration.’
‘Those who were following @RashtrapatiBhvn will now automatically follow BOTH accounts: @RashtrapatiBhvn and @POI13, to facilitate communication from the official President of India account to its audience. Users who do not wish to follow either accounts may unfollow through our normal process.’
‘People who would like to continue following President Pranab Mukherjee on Twitter can engage with him through his personal Twitter account: @CitiznMukherjee.’
The last tweet on @POI13 was made by ex-President Mukherjee on July 24. After that the account has gone silent and the action has shifted to @rahstrapatibhvn, which has turned into a beehive of activity.
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