MENLO PARK: Some Facebook and Instagram users were surprised this week to find that they were suddenly following the accounts of US President Donald Trump, Melania Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Instagram and Facebook.
But according to parent company Meta, there is a simple reason for this: The official accounts for the president, first lady and vice president have simply been transferred to the new office holders.
"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.
User suspisions were raised when they saw that the accounts they were following were brand new, and had been created in January 2025. However Meta argues that users are still following the same White House accounts, only that now they are managed by the Trump administration.
"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."
At the same time, some users of the online platforms complained that they were unable to unfollow or block the new White House profiles. Stone said it can take longer to unfollow or follow an account during the handover period.
Scrutiny of Meta's platforms has been heightened since founder Mark Zuckerberg culled the company's fact-checking programme in favour of a community notes, a system similar to that on Elon Musk’s social media platform X and one that is deemed to be more favourable to the incoming US president, long known for making false statements. – dpa/Tribune News Service
