Liberal Facebook and Instagram users were alarmed when they noticed they were automatically following President Donald Trump’s and Vice President JD Vance’s accounts after the inauguration, mistakenly believing the platforms were forcing users to follow the profiles as part of a “propaganda machine.”
Many users were shocked to find posts from the new administration appearing in their feeds, claiming they never followed either Trump or Vance. Speculation abounded that this was the Trump Administration’s first move toward controlling Meta-owned social platforms. Contributing to the frenzy were multiple social media executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, prominently attending Trump’s inauguration.
One user wrote on X, “Wait, did Facebook auto-follow all of the new admin for Americans?? I did not follow any of these pages, I barely even use Facebook, but they were all at the top of my feed, and when I clicked through, it said I followed them??”
Another expressed similar concerns: “Not only is Instagram forcing accounts to auto-follow the VP, but they essentially bought or stole Kamala’s entire follow list. They have the exact same amount of followers and all of the same people I follow, follow both accounts. People I know don’t want to follow him.”
Others believed this was part of a larger effort to manipulate social media users. One person wrote, “Believe it or not, I 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 on a daily basis on a ridiculous (un)following battle I don’t want to be a part of.”
However, many pointed out that the situation wasn’t an “auto-follow” in the way some feared. The official U.S. government accounts—such as POTUS, the vice president, and the first lady—switch over to the incoming administration while retaining their existing followers.
“Not to say Meta is above doing sketchy stuff, but this wasn’t an ‘auto-follow’ in that sense,” a user explained on X. “The official VP insta switched from Harris to Vance, retaining current followers. The POTUS account also switched over, but I guess Vance is just a particularly jarring face to see pop up.”
Meta spokesman Andy Stone clarified the situation in a Threads post, explaining that government social media accounts are managed by the White House. When the occupant of the White House changes, the accounts transfer to the new administration, but followers remain the same.
“All posts from the prior administration are archived,” Stone said, adding, “The account itself isn’t deleted, it’s the same account, so the followers stay the same.”
As of Tuesday morning, former President Joe Biden’s archived POTUS account on Facebook had 11 million followers, matching the new POTUS account under Trump.
The perceived auto-follows left some Biden supporters inadvertently following Trump, but users are free to unfollow by clicking the ellipsis on the profile page and selecting “unfollow.”
