U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks after meeting with local youth and law enforcement officials
IN PHOTO: U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks after meeting with local youth and law enforcement officials at the Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in Camden, New Jersey May 18, 2015. Obama is making the visit to New Jersey Monday to push efforts to encourage trust-building between police and the communities they serve. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

The U.S. President Barack Obama has finally joined the world of twitter after six years. The news was confirmed by the White House. In the first few hours, Mr. Obama drew more than a million followers. His Twitter handle is @POTUS (President Of The United States).

Mr. Obama appears to be on line with celebrities as Katy Perry, who tops Twitter with nearly 70 million followers, and Justin Bieber, who ranks second with almost 64 million. Pope Francis started his account in 2012 and has mustered six million followers whereas Mr. Obama's British counterpart Prime Minister David Cameron has only a million followers whereas his account was launched in 2010.

After getting his own twitter platform to converse with the American public at large, the President tweeted, "Hello, Twitter! It's Barack. Really! Six years in, they're finally giving me my own account." Now he shall be able to communicate with the Americans directly and not through officials.

"The @POTUS Twitter account will serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people, with tweets coming exclusively from him. President Obama is committed to making his Administration the most open and participatory in history, and @POTUS will give Americans a new venue to engage on the issues that matter most to them," according to a White House website blog entry.

However, Mr. Obama encounters a daunting task and that is to communicate in less than 140 characters.

The Organizing for Action staff runs the President's official feed and has a whopping 59.3 million followers. The account @BarackObama started in 2007, and the President initials tweets he writes himself with the letters BO.

Mr. Obama joined the fray with a short description — “Dad, husband, and 44th President of the United States” — and a picture of him leading a crowd in a commemorative walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., in March.

The first message on twitter was sent on an iPhone, but aides said the phone belonged to the Executive Office of the President. His staff are keeping mum on the President’s personal technology. It has not yet been clarified as to which device Mr. Obama will use to express himself on twitter.

The writer can be contacted at ritambanati@yahoo.com.

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