Twitter CEO Explains Bungled @POTUS Transition

"This was a mistake, it wasn’t right, we own it, and we apologize. No excuses."

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey took to the platform he created Saturday morning to explain the glitches with the transition from former President Barack Obama to President Donald Trump on the official @POTUS account.

In a series of tweets, Dorsey said the transition was scheduled to begin at noon ET on Friday. Users who followed the POTUS account before noon were to be set to follow both POTUS and POTUS44. But that didn't quite happen. Some users who followed POTUS44 were mistakenly set to also follow POTUS. Meanwhile, some people who had explicitly unfollowed POTUS prior to the transition from Obama to Trump were incorrectly made followers again.

WTF?! Did Trump just force a bunch of us to follow his account?! I never followed @POTUS here & this morning I wasn… https://t.co/GCRxJr1gag

Dorsey said the issue affected about 560,000 people, and he formally apologized for it. "This was a mistake, it wasn't right, we own it, and we apologize," he said. "No excuses."

All: we investigated what happened here, and we made some mistakes (which have been corrected). Some context first. https://t.co/W1n3Xs6LaN

Because @POTUS is an institutional account (not personal) they felt it only fair to transition accounts with followers intact, but 0 tweets.

If you were following @POTUS before 12pET, by end of day you'd be following *two* accounts: @POTUS44 (44th Admin) and @POTUS (45th Admin)

Because @POTUS is an institutional account (not personal) they felt it only fair to transition accounts with followers intact, but 0 tweets.

1. People who followed @POTUS44 (Obama Admin) after 12pET were mistakenly set to also follow @POTUS (Trump Admin).

We believe this affected about 560,000 people. This was a mistake, it wasn't right, we own it, and we apologize. No excuses.

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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