Meta Refutes Claims of ‘Forcing’ Users to Follow Donald Trump and JD Vance on Social Media Platforms | Science, Climate & Tech News
The parent company of Facebook, Meta, has rejected allegations from certain users claiming they were “compelled” to follow the social media accounts associated with the Trump administration.
Users on Facebook and Instagram have reported that they discovered they were “automatically” following the official accounts of Donald Trump and JD Vance after their inauguration on Monday.
This outcry follows a series of policy modifications implemented by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta to align its social media platforms more closely with the Trump administration.
However, Meta contends that it did not force users to follow these accounts and pointed out that the accounts of the president and vice president are associated with the U.S. offices rather than the individuals. Consequently, users who previously followed those accounts for the former president and vice president continue to do so, even after Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance took over from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Some users have further claimed they were being coerced into following the accounts and experienced difficulties when attempting to unfollow them.
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Singer Gracie Abrams shared on her Instagram Stories that she had to “unfollow @vp and @potus three separate times today because Meta kept automatically refollowing the accounts”.
She mentioned, “How curious! I had to block them to ensure I am not associated with that.”
In response, a Meta representative stated: “Users were not required to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the president, vice president, or first lady.”
“These accounts are overseen by the White House, so when a new administration comes in, the content on those pages shifts.”
“This is the same process we observed during the last presidential transition. It may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to be processed as these accounts change ownership.”
