Since November 19, the day of the ballot in which Javier Milei became the elected President of the Argentines, the word most mentioned by the media is “transition”. But no one talked about the transfer of the digital assets of the National State. In this note we tell you the history of the transition of social networks and what resolution mentions this.
What will the transition be like? Who are the Ministers who will be sworn in and form the National Cabinet? What will Javier Milei’s inauguration be like? These were some of the many questions that were answered in the last 15 days but no one explained something fundamental For the times we live in: How is the transition of the State’s social networks? This takes on greater importance if we take into account that these platforms were a key piece for Javier Milei to become President.
In 2015, the presidential transition in our country was accompanied by an unprecedented event on social networks policies. Just two days after the inauguration of Mauricio Macri as the new president, Kirchnerism “took over” the official profile of the Casa Rosada on Twitter (now “X”), marking a radical change. The check, @CasaRosadaAR, which had the “verified account” badge, changed its name to “Casa Rosada 2003-2015”. This unusual move signaled that the previous administration had taken over the government’s official Twitter account, and it represented the State’s most important digital asset up to that point.
Before the transfer of command, in 2015, The account description was modified to reflect the management of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Kirchner, marking a clear political positioning. The account, used for Kirchnerist militancy, lost the verification badge and is no longer active. This episode raised questions about the management of government social media accounts and led to reflection on the need to protect government digital assets.
With the arrival of Mauricio Macri and the absence of official accounts, new social networks were created for the Casa Rosada, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. These platforms quickly gained verification. Currently, the Casa Rosada page on Facebook has more than 2 million followers, on Instagram almost 507,000, and on Twitter it has more than 940,000 followers. The YouTube channel has about 315,000 subscribers.
During the management change, and with the aim of distinguishing the “President of Argentina” from the “person” Mauricio Macri, the official page “Presidente Mauricio Macri” was created on Facebook with the username @PresidenteAR, where government issues were exclusively addressed. This page was published in May 2017.
This practice of having a “government account” and a “personal account” resembles the American model, where the sitting President has an official account: @POTUS. At the end of the term, the account is filed with the corresponding president number in the country’s history. For example, after Barack Obama became president, all of his digital communication was archived under the username @POTUS44.
In 2021, the contents of Donald Trump’s presidency will be archived under @POTUS45 (President Donald J. Trump Archived). Macri’s presidency was archived on Facebook under the name “President Mauricio Macri 2015-2019”, with 165,000 followers. A peculiarity: the @PresidenteAR page was not used by Alberto Fernández’s management.
In fact, it has a single publication made on December 9, 2019. Evidently, the decision between 2019 and 2023 was not to continue the model imposed by the Macri administration and all the President’s official communication at that time was channeled from the personal networks of Alberto Fernández himself.
To avoid situations like those that occurred in 2015, in 2019 the Chief of Staff published a resolution on the transition that covers all digital assets, including systems, users, databases, applications, websites, domains, social media accounts and profiles. governmental. This prevents an outgoing government from “taking away” or eliminating official accounts. of social networks at the end of their mandate, also incorporating the social networks of provinces or ministries. Thus, no official government account belongs to an official, preventing those who are no longer authorities from retaining those accounts.
In addition, copies are made of digital content published during government administration. That is, mirror accounts are made. For example, on December 9, 2019, Mauricio Macri’s management was archived under the profile of Instagram Casa Rosada 2015-2019, the same thing happened on Facebook. Alberto Fernández’s administration received the new Casa Rosada accounts from the Meta universe (with the same number of followers as the mirror ones) and already verified. On the other hand, in the case of Twitter and YouTube, mirror accounts are not created but access is given to the new management with the content and followers generated so far.
How will Javier Milei’s team manage social networks? Will the leader of La Libertad Avanza continue managing his personal accounts without third-party filters? Will there be more professional interference? All questions that will begin to be answered starting December 10 when a new stage begins for our democracy and also for the digital political world.
