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Joe Biden becomes @POTUS on Twitter on Wednesday. But unlike four years ago, when President Donald Trump took over the handle, Biden won’t keep the account’s current followers.

Instead, those followers will get a notification about the transfer with the option to follow Biden’s POTUS account if they wish. Twitter users who follow his transition account, @PresElectBiden, will automatically follow the new POTUS account.

Washington Post reports that Biden’s digital director Rob Flaherty called Twitter’s transition plan “profoundly insufficient” in a tweet last week.

“They’re bending themselves over backwards to break with the 2017 protocol they set on the transfer of accounts and also breaking with every other social platform in providing the new administration a follower base,” he added.

The move of accounts between administrations is just one of a broader digital transition among social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube taking place as Biden becomes the 46th president Wednesday.

The social media companies will hand over the keys to the White House accounts to the Biden administration after archiving them on Inauguration Day, ushering in what is expected to mark a different tone and cadence of the accounts after the past four years.

The Biden administration will take over the @POTUS account on Twitter, as well as @WhiteHouse, @VP, @FLOTUS and @PressSec. On Facebook, the administration will take over accounts for the White House and POTUS, and on YouTube, they will inherit the White House channel.

Twitter declined to comment beyond its blog about the decision not to automatically move followers.

“These institutional accounts will not automatically retain the followers from the prior administration,” Twitter wrote in a blog post about the inauguration. “People on Twitter who previously followed institutional White House Twitter accounts, or who currently follow relevant Biden or Harris Twitter accounts, will receive in-app alerts and other prompts that will notify them about the archival process, as well as give them the option to follow the new administration’s Twitter accounts.”

Trump’s POTUS account has more than 33 million followers. It and all its tweets will be archived Wedesday and preserved by the National Archives and Records Administration. Twitter will also create a new institutional account for the incoming administration: @SecondGentleman for Doug Emhoff, husband to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and the first male spouse in that role.

The official POTUS account is separate from Trump’s personal account, which he primarily used as his mouthpiece during his tenure and which has now been banned by Twitter over concerns his tweets were inciting violence.

Trump has also been suspended “indefinitely” from Facebook, and YouTube confirmed Tuesday that it would extend his suspension there for at least another week. The historic crackdown by the social media companies came after years of increasing tension between the sites and Trump’s fiery rhetoric, which often included dangerous misinformation.

The final straw was the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol that Trump failed to immediately condemn, leading the companies to shut down his social media access to try to prevent more violence.

YouTube will transition the White House account to the Biden administration, along with its 1.9 million followers. The videos currently on the page will be moved to a new channel to serve as an archive, similar to the Obama White House channel.

Facebook and Instagram will archive Trump’s POTUS and White House accounts and turn over those usernames to Biden.

People who follow the current White House account will automatically follow it when Biden takes over, and people who follow Joe Biden’s current political accounts will also follow him on the POTUS handle. But current followers of Trump’s POTUS handle will not automatically follow that account under Biden.

“We’re following the same procedures we used during the transfer between the Obama and Trump administrations when President-elect Biden is sworn into office,” Facebook spokesperson Dani Lever said.

Biden will be only the third president to use Twitter while in office, and it’s a safe bet that he will not strike the same tone as Trump.

“Anyway, the nice thing about Joe Biden is that he truly couldn’t care less about Twitter followers. Or Twitter!” Flaherty tweeted last week.

More than 80 people have been killed in two days of ongoing clashes in Sudan’s restive Darfur, doctors said, just over two weeks since a long-running peacekeeping mission ended operations.

The violence is the most significant fighting reported since the signing of a peace agreement in October, which observers hoped would end years of war that has left the vast western region awash with weapons.

The fighting reportedly pitted Arab against non-Arab tribes in West Darfur’s capital El Geneina, and is thought to have started as a local dispute before escalating into broader disputes between militias.

“The death toll from the bloody events that occurred in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur State has risen since Saturday morning… to 83 dead, and 160 wounded including from the armed forces,” the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors said.

The United Nations, a long-running presence in the country, also expressed deep concerns on Sunday over the violence.

Sudanese authorities, AFP reports, have imposed a state-wide curfew in West Darfur, while the Khartoum government dispatched a “high-profile” delegation to help contain the situation.

Citing the doctors’ union, the state-run SUNA news agency said casualties were likely to increase as fighting continues.

The union’s local branch also said health facilities must be secured and transport made available. 

On Sunday, the head of Sudan’s ruling body, army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, met top security chiefs to discuss the violence.

They decided to send reinforcements to the region to secure civilians and key infrastructure, the cabinet announced on Twitter.

The Sudanese Professionals Association, an umbrella group that spearheaded protests against ousted president Omar al-Bashir, said the violence-hit camps for people already displaced by conflict.

“These events showed that the spread of weapons across Sudan, and especially in Darfur, are the main reasons for the deteriorating situation,” it said in a statement.

On December 31, the hybrid United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) formally ended its 13 years of operations in the region.

It plans a phased withdrawal of its approximately 8,000 armed and civilian personnel within six months.

The Sudanese government “will take over responsibility for the protection of civilians” in Darfur, UNAMID said as its mandate ended.

Fearing deadly violence, Darfur residents held protests in late December against UNAMID’s departure.

Also in late December, clashes in South Darfur state left at least 15 people dead and dozens wounded, prompting the government to send troops to the area.

On Sunday, the UN secretary-general’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric called on Sudanese authorities to “bring an end to the fighting”.

“Escalating inter-communal violence has resulted in scores of deaths and injuries, the displacement of nearly 50,000 people and the destruction of property,” he said in a statement.

Darfur endured a bitter conflict that erupted in 2003, leaving roughly 300,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced, according to the UN.

The fighting erupted when ethnic minority rebels rose up against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum, which responded by recruiting and arming a notorious Arab-dominated militia known as the Janjaweed.

The main conflict has subsided over the years but ethnic and tribal clashes still flare periodically, largely pitting nomadic Arab pastoralists against settled farmers from non-Arab ethnic groups. 

The violence often centres on land ownership and access to water.

Sudan is undergoing a rocky political transitional after Bashir’s April 2019 ouster.

Bashir, who is currently in custody in Khartoum, is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged genocide and war crimes in Darfur perpetrated more than a decade ago.

The transitional government, a power-sharing arrangement comprised of generals and civilian figures, signed an October peace agreement with rebel groups in Sudan’s main conflict zones, including Darfur.

But two groups refused to join the recent peace deal, including the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) faction led by Abdelwahid Nour, which is believed to maintain considerable support in Darfur.

The Sudanese Professionals Association said the violence in West Darfur shows the “deficiencies” of the peace agreement, which they said did not address the roots of the crisis in the region.