The Biden administration is having a little Twitter fight about whether or not to reset the followers of the @potus account. While followers were rolled over from the Obama administration to Trump’s, the Trump administration, who views Twitter followers as if they represented actual voters-who-love-Donald, doesn’t think the incoming president should get to inherit all of those bots and disenfranchised twelve-year olds. Let us stop and reflect on the stupidity and pettiness of this argument. What the Biden administration really should be thinking about is whether to close @potus and get the White House off of Twitter completely.

Social media, and especially Twitter has, year after year, been on a steady course of devolving into the toxic cesspool it is today. Long before Trump took office, social media was the leading source of disinformation, threats, harassment, toxicity, and division. The Trump administration only helped concentrate what had already been there for years. Twitter, in spite of the image they’d like to project as the arbiters of truth, has been not only reckless and markedly complicit, but stood to profit by allowing the hostile attacks, disinformation, and toxic abuse that has spewed across their platform, especially that of the Trump administration and other public officials over the years.

Warning labels and interstitials only recently came into existence after years-long disinformation campaigns were allowed to run rampant to the degree they interfered with elections. While Twitter and Facebook would like America to pat them on the back for this, the fact remains that the accounts many of these appear on should have been thrown off the platforms years ago for the massive number of CoC violations that promoted violence, extremism, hateful conduct, harassment, doxxing, and even copyright violations.

Instead, Twitter created an “upper class” of privileged people who didn’t need to obey their rules, setting themselves up as the shock jocks of the industry, all but guaranteeing to attract additional subscribers (a key metric in their valuation) and gain frequent exposure from news media. Congress continues to debate whether or not Twitter is a publisher, but it feels more like Twitter has become an entertainment network. By ignoring policies, they’ve helped position disruptors on their platform in a way that gives them an advantage over others, even if they choose to harass, abuse, or incite violence. This certainly doesn’t give people on the platform an equal voice, and when a provider starts favoring one voice over another, it should call into question whether they really qualify for Section 230 protections.

The Biden administration seeks to bring unity to the American people. Unity is a concept that is sadly counter to the business model of social media today. Division and hostility bring eyeballs, and the design of most social platforms tip the scales to reward hostility and division. It has for years. If the Biden administration really wants to bring unity to America, it should start by recognizing that social media is part of the problem, not the solution.

What this country needs is a dose of authenticity. If the Biden administration wants to give the American people something that feels authentic, then for God’s sake, get the White House off of Twitter.