Here’s the first tweet from President Barack Obama’s brand new Twitter account.
Hello, Twitter! It's Barack. Really! Six years in, they're finally giving me my own account.
— President Obama (@POTUS) May 18, 2015
Like heck you say, I’ve been following Obama for years.
Well, kind of.
This account is not really President Obama:
Welcome @POTUS, the official government account of the President of the United States.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 18, 2015
Neither is this one:
President Obama.
In the Oval Office.
Tweeting.
#WelcomeToTwitter, @POTUS!
http://t.co/SzWXltjNK0 pic.twitter.com/ce4DurwYXj
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 18, 2015
@BarackObama used to be The President’s official account – but as The Washington Post explains, it’s really run by Obama’s non-profit:
After the 2012 campaign, Barack Obama and his allies formed Organizing For Action, a non-profit organization that was intended to carry on the grass-roots work of Obama for America, the 2012 campaign. In order to get people involved, OFA (which from here on out will be short for Organizing For Action) rented the social media accounts that were — and still are — owned by the Obama campaign.
So, @BarackObama has always spoken for the President (and moved his agenda), but it wasn’t really Obama himself sitting there tweeting. He did “author” some tweets from that account, always signed “-BO”. But that hasn’t happened in over two years.
Long story short, this is actually Obama tweeting from his own account, for the first time in a long time. We’ll see how long it lasts.
FLOTUS is on board, by the way.
It's about time, @POTUS! –mo
— The First Lady (@FLOTUS) May 18, 2015
Above image via @POTUS, Twitter. Yes, Obama currently has 666K followers. Do what you want with that, Fox News.