On the 20th of January, President Joe Biden was sworn in as the President of the United States, marking the end of former President Donald Trump's term in office and the daily chaos and falsehoods that defined his presidency.
The work of undoing the nationalist efforts of the Trump administration began immediately after, with Biden signing multiple executive orders to rejoin the Paris Climate Accords, extend student loan payment deferrals, and more.
The digital presence of the White House also changed, with the official @Potus, @VP, @WhiteHouse, and other Twitter accounts modified to reflect the new administration. Government websites did the same, including www.whitehouse.gov.
In addition to photos and bios of the new administration officials, another change to the website was missed by anyone who didn't delve into the metadata.
Apparently the new https://t.co/UE36L1NK7t has a hidden message for programmers: https://t.co/xdtZXvoDJk— Eric Michaud (@Eric Michaud) 1611164287.0
The site's coding features a hidden message:
"<!-- If you're reading this, we need your help building back better."
It then provides a link for coders to apply to the United States Digital Service (USDS), which "deploys small, responsive groups of designers, engineers, product managers, and bureaucracy specialists to work with and empower civil servants."
The phrase "build back better" is a motto frequently deployed by President Biden and his officials to describe the substantial work of rebuilding the economy in the face of the pandemic that's killed over 400 thousand Americans.
People hailed the hidden listing.
The new administration is already giving HTML-hacking-geeks easter eggs. https://t.co/mlFO8tfxn6— Dave LeCompte (he/him) 🇺🇸 (@Dave LeCompte (he/him) 🇺🇸) 1611182334.0
This is good https://t.co/XZVp00tLZw— F. Page Steinhardt (@F. Page Steinhardt) 1611182215.0
Clever job posting for right-click rangers. :) https://t.co/YBqDCwaoCN— Joe Brown, CISSP (@Joe Brown, CISSP) 1611184332.0
LOVE THIS SO EFFING MUCH. https://t.co/3SLBmprMgV— abolish ICE (@abolish ICE) 1611181808.0
EPIC PROGRAMMING WIN https://t.co/K4ok7LOIXr— A. Lee Bennett Jr. (@A. Lee Bennett Jr.) 1611179346.0
This is simply awesome https://t.co/eXxUlKmr65— Jose Fernandez (@Jose Fernandez) 1611176489.0
There's already interest in joining the USDS.
@USDS Applied; hoping to use my skills to bring more accessibility to government sites and apps! Also really appreciated Mollie the Crab! 😉— Theo Oing | UX Researcher & Designer 🥽 (@Theo Oing | UX Researcher & Designer 🥽) 1611182722.0
@USDS Applied.— TURKRENO (@TURKRENO) 1611176871.0
The Biden presidency is officially underway.