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.png) whitehouse.gov in January 2025 | |
Type of site | Government |
|---|---|
| Available in | English, Spanish (archives only)[a] |
| Owner | Federal government of the United States |
| URL |
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| Commercial | No |
| Launched | July 29, 1994; 30 years ago (1994-07-29) |
| Current status | Active |
| Written in | WordPress |
whitehouse.gov orwh.gov is the officialwebsite of theWhite House and is managed by theOffice of Digital Strategy of theWhite House Office under theExecutive Office of the President of the United States. It was launched in 1994 by theClinton administration.[1] The content of the website is in thepublic domain or licensed underCreative Commons Attribution license.[2]
The content of the White House website is designed to be an open portfolio for the public to know the current operations of the president during their presidency. The website contains information about thepresident, thevice president, their families, press releases, proclamations,executive orders, and a transcript of speeches by White House officials.
The website also provides information about the current issues the president and vice president address (likeeducation,healthcare, etc.), also providing information about the history of the White House building,Air Force One, andCamp David. The website also reviews the structure of thefederal government of the United States, including details aboutstate andlocal government, along with voting and elections.
The website also offers information about getting involved with the White House. This includes directions on how to write or call the White House, as well as details about theWhite House Internship Program and theWhite House Fellows Program.
The site also contains information about the currentCabinet of the United States and theExecutive Office of the President of the United States.
After a new administration is sworn in onInauguration Day, the website is immediately redesigned for the new administration. Past administration websites are archived by theNational Archives.
On September 1, 2011,David Plouffe,Senior Advisor to the President of the United States toBarack Obama, announced in an email that the White House was releasing "We the People", an online platform for the public to create petitions to the US Government. The launch of the petitioning platform was announced by Katelyn Sabochik on September 22, 2011 in a White House blog post.[3]
On December 19, 2017, theTrump administration announced its intention to temporarily shut down the platform and replace it with a "new platform [that] would save taxpayers more than $1m a year", though ultimately it was retained in its initial form.[4] On January 20, 2021, the day of theinauguration of Joe Biden, the platform started redirecting to the main whitehouse.gov domain, marking the discontinuance of the feature by the incoming administration. It has not been relaunched since.[5]
In July 2001,[6] theWhite House started switching theirweb servers to an operating system based onRed Hat Linux and using theApache HTTP Server.[7] The installation was completed in February 2009.[8][9][failed verification] In October 2009, the White House web servers adoptedDrupal, afree and open-sourcecontent management system,[10][11] which runs onRed Hat Enterprise Linux.[12]
In December 2017, theTrump administration launched a redesigned website developed usingWordPress which it claimed would save taxpayers "almost $3 million per year".[13]
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