Meta has issued a statement, denying claims circulating on social media that Facebook and Instagram users were forced to follow President Donald Trump's official accounts. The company said the changes noticed by the users were standard practices, often followed when there is a transition from the previous administration to the incoming one.
"People were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the President, Vice President or First Lady. Those accounts are managed by the White House so with a new administration, the content on those Pages changes," wrote Meta spokesperson Andy Stone.
"This is the same procedure we followed during the last presidential transition. It may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands."
Meta's public affairs director Nkechi Nneji added that people might have forgotten that they had followed the official White House accounts during previous administrations.
"Meta doesn't make anyone follow any account and we never have." Ms Nneji told CBS News.
What did users claim?
After the POTUS account was switched from Joe Biden to Donald Trump, many of the users reacted surprisingly as one of the posts made it to their feed.
"Automatically making everyone follow him....WTF," said one user, while another added: "How am I automatically following....Mark! What do you have going on?"
A third commented: "I have now gone and unfollowed him twice and they keep switching it back to 'following'. I guess maybe if I block him that would work. That'll be my next step."
Apart from clarifying its position on the matter, Mera also said it was working to resolve an issue on Instagram that temporarily blocked political terms such as "Democrats" and "Republican," from search results.
Notably, Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg was among the list of high-profile celebrities that attended President Trump's inauguration ceremony. In the lead-up to the event, Mr Zuckerberg's company had donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund.
The donation followed a supercharged election cycle where Mr Trump openly threatened repercussions for any perceived meddling by technology leaders. He even called for Mr Zuckerberg to “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he tried to interfere with the 2024 election.
