The sitting president wasn't the only thing that got a face lift on Friday afternoon. Immediately following the inauguration of Donald Trump, people began noticing changes to the White House's official website. The segments and sections displayed during Barack Obama's presidency were no longer there - they vanished just as soon as he did in a plane over his former home.
A digital footprint shift
Early January 20th, the White House website touted as much information as it could hold, from biographical information to policy knowledge. It also contained an "Issues" tab, where readers could learn about things such as climate change, civil rights, immigration, and issues related to the LGBT community.
As soon as the inauguration became official, however, all of those things were gone.
The new edition of the White House website included a picture of Trump, as well as references to his campaign slogan "Make America Great Again." The "Issues" tab was still there, but instead, it was touting an "America First Energy Plan" and "Making Our Military Strong Again" section, among others. A cursory search of the old features of the website yielded an unresponsive search.
No need to panic
Many people were immediately in an uproar, but the changes to the White House website were actually planned well in advance and fall in line with recent precedent. The features of the former website are now archived and can be found under a different domain name, designed to honor the tenets of Obama's presidency.
The same thing was down with the Twitter accounts, with the previous POTUS and FLOTUS accounts being archived and started fresh for the new leaders.
Trump will have to know from now on, however, that he can't tuck things under the rug and expect nobody to notice. His White House will have to be accountable to the people, and even those who aren't in his constituency and don't want to see the changes from the past eight years disappear because there's a new administration. The reaction to the website gaffe is proof of that.
