Update, Jan. 20, 1:35pm: The misinformation in question—a photo from former US president Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration—has been replaced at the top of the @POTUS Twitter account with a generic image of the American flag.
Update, Jan. 20, 2pm: The image has been replaced once again, this time with a photo of a Trump himself as he stares out the window.
Moments ago, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th US president, and as expected, he was handed control of the @POTUS Twitter account. So far, the account hasn’t tweeted anything, and is slowly building back up a follower count, as Twitter shifts former US president Barack Obama’s followers and tweets to a new home at @POTUS44. But there is already an odd mistake on the refreshed @POTUS page.
As engineer Adam Pash pointed out on Twitter, the header image on Trump’s new account is a picture from Obama’s first swearing-in, back in 2009, rather than his own inauguration ceremony:
Perhaps the photo was meant to be a placeholder, as Trump’s social media team gears up to start work. But one wonders why a photo from Trump’s own inauguration—of which there are already many on the photo wires—wasn’t chosen, and why the team instead selected with a caption that reads ”The inauguration of President Barack Obama, January 20th 2009.”
Perhaps it was chosen because of the second line of the caption—”Unrecognizable crowds in the Washington Mall.” Or perhaps there was another reason.
Either way, it’s worth remembering, the election-cycle fake news scandals notwithstanding, it’s still pretty hard to pull a fast one on the internet.