Mother Jones
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A social-media frenzy greeted President Barack Obama’s announcement on Monday that he had “finally” joined Twitter with a verified @POTUS Twitter account. Of course, the president has long used the official @barackobama handle, run by his political group Organizing for Action (followers: 59.3 million), with the sign-off “-bo.” But what was new, we were told, is that this account will be pure Barack Obama—a personal account, all his own. The White House says the president “launched” the @POTUS account from the Oval Office:
Hello, Twitter! It’s Barack. Really! Six years in, they’re finally giving me my own account.
— President Obama (@POTUS)
By the end of Monday, that tweet had been shared and favorited hundreds of thousands of times, and generated hundreds of news articles welcoming the “Tweeter-in-Chief.”
But it turns out that this is not the first tweet sent from the @POTUS Twitter account, according to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. The first tweet preserved in the archive from the @POTUS account is a mysterious message about someone named “Roy”:
Who is Roy? What did he do to POTUS? Internet Archive
According to the tweet’s time stamp, it was sent on March 11, 2008. It reads: “wondering what Roy got me into now.” Twitter started in 2006. This tweet was sent while George W. Bush was still in office.
At the time, the @POTUS account only had one follower. The archive has not preserved who that solitary follower was, but @POTUS was soon to gather another three: By the end of January 2009, @POTUS was broadcasting to four followers.
But then, sometime between 2009 and September 2013, the account went silent, and was locked down to outside viewers. This message appeared in various languages across the archive’s 37 “captures” (as of Monday night). In English: “Only confirmed followers have access to @POTUS’s Tweets and complete profile.” Click the “Follow” button to send a follow request.”
Who is Roy? And what mischief did he create for @POTUS? We may never know. But in the meantime, Mother Jones has reached out to the White House with a variety of questions, including:
- Who owned and ran the @POTUS Twitter account prior to the White House?
- When did the White House come into possession of the account?
- Did any money change hands to get the account?
- Was Twitter involved in ensuring access to the account?
- Who is Roy?
We will update this post when we hear back.
More:
This Is Actually the First Tweet @POTUS Ever Sent, Back in 2008
