Enlarge image
Government spokesman Seibert and his boss
Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa
The Twitter account of government spokesman Steffen Seibert is to be archived after the appointment of the new federal government.
The account is "pushed aside, so to speak," said Seibert on Friday in Berlin.
"It can then still be viewed, but nothing more is added." At first there were no further details on the closure of the account with the name @RegSsprecher.
Seibert took over the office of government spokesman on August 11, 2010.
More than a million people follow him on his Twitter account, which has existed since January 2011 and which is now to be frozen.
In the coming week, the new federal government consisting of the SPD, the Greens and the FDP is to be sworn in.
Seibert's successor could be the spokesman for Olaf Scholz: Steffen Hebestreit.
He tweeted at @hebesteff and, like Seibert, is a former journalist.
He currently has around a million fewer followers than Angela Merkel's spokesman.
The principle of archiving tweets from the government has been known for a long time in the USA, where "the First Open Social Media Archive for America's First Social Media President" was once set up for Barack Obama.
It contains more than 100 social media accounts, including those of @PressSec, the counterpart to @RegSsprecher.
Today @PressSec is used by Joe Biden's spokesperson Jen Psaki.
In addition, the National Archives and Records Administration (Nara) has archived Obama's tweets: What was published on the @Potus account can be seen today at @ Potus44.
pbe / dpa
