Progressive Facebook and Instagram users were surprised to find themselves automatically following President Donald Trump’s and Vice President JD Vance’s accounts after the inauguration. They incorrectly believed that the platforms were coercing Americans to follow these profiles as part of a propaganda campaign.
Left-leaning users were puzzled when posts from the new leaders of the country started appearing on their feeds, even though they had never followed Trump or Vance.
Some individuals feared that this automatic following was the first step by the Trump Administration to control Meta-owned social media platforms. This anxiety was fueled by the presence of social media executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, at Trump’s inauguration.
“Did Facebook automatically follow all the new admin for Americans? I never followed any of these pages, but they were all at the top of my feed, and when I checked, it said I followed them,” one user expressed on X.
Another user added, “Instagram is not only forcing accounts to auto-follow the VP, but they essentially acquired or took Kamala’s entire following list. They have the same number of followers and all the people I follow are following both accounts. People I know do not want to follow him.”
“Believe it or not, I just realized today that I was following an account I never followed at all. The automatic follow is part of the propaganda machine social media has become. I will have to check daily on a ridiculous (un)following battle I don’t want to be a part of,” a third user wrote.
However, the alarmed social media users were simply following the official US government accounts, which transition with each new administration taking office, as pointed out by others to calm the rising panic.
“Not to say Meta is above doing sketchy stuff, but this wasn’t an ‘auto follow’ in that sense. The official VP Instagram switched from Harris to Vance, retaining current followers. The POTUS account also switched over, but I guess Vance’s appearance was just particularly unexpected,” one X user commented.
The official government accounts, including the POTUS, vice president, and first lady profiles, are all managed by the White House and the current administration in power.
After the inauguration, all posts from the previous administration are archived, giving the impression that the account is starting anew. However, the account remains the same, so the followers remain unchanged.
By Tuesday morning, former President Joe Biden’s archived POTUS account on Facebook had 11 million followers, matching Trump’s new POTUS account on the platform.
Consequently, many supporters of the Biden Administration unintentionally found themselves following Trump on Monday.
Users have the option to choose whether to continue following or unfollowing these accounts by clicking the ellipsis on the profile page and selecting “unfollow.”
With Post wires
