After President Donald Trump’s swearing in Monday, numerous Facebook and Instagram users discovered — to their horror and dismay — that they were somehow following not only Trump but also Vice President JD Vance, First Lady Melania Trump and other accounts for the new White House administration.
To many, it seemed as if their Facebook and Instagram accounts were being forced to follow the profiles without their knowledge or permission. And some saw a sinister connection with Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg’s recent moves to curry favor with Trump, including the company’s $1 million donation to the presidential inauguration fund and Zuckerberg’s decision to end the internet giant’s fact-checking program (something Trump and other conservatives have complained about).
Adding to the consternation: Some Facebook and Instagram users said they tried — unsuccessfully — to unfollow Trump and others multiple times.
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Demi Lovato, who has 154 million followers in Instagram, on Tuesday posted a screenshot of Vance’s Instagram account that showed her following it after she had already tried to unfollow it two times, she claimed. “i have unfollowed this guy twice today,” Lovato wrote in her Instagram Story. “Shady fucking business meta.”
According to Meta, there was a simple explanation for the seeming auto-follows: Users who had been following, for example, the @POTUS account on Facebook and Instagram under President Biden were now seeing Trump in their feed because Meta’s services switched over the official accounts with the change in administration. Facebook and Instagram did the very same thing when Trump left the White House in 2021 and President Biden took office.
“People were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the President, Vice President or First Lady,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement posted to Threads. “Those accounts are managed by the White House so with a new administration, the content on those Pages changes. This is the same procedure we followed during the last presidential transition.”
As for the allegation that it took users several tries to unfollow the new White House handles, Stone said, “It may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands.”
Elon Musk’s X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, also switched over the official @whitehouse, @potus, @vp, @flotus and other accounts on Jan. 20 to the Trump administration.