Meta has denied claims of automatically forcing users to follow official Trump administration accounts, including President Donald Trump’s, JD Vance, and Melania Trump, following user complaints.
Meta spokesman, Andy Stone explained that the social media accounts were managed by the White House, which had updated them to reflect the new position holders.
“This is the same procedure we followed during the last presidential transition,” Stone had written in a statement, adding that it may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands”.
The accounts carry the handles Potus- which stands for “president of the United States” – as well as VicePresident and Flotus, an acronym for the first lady.
Archived versions of the pages show the Potus and Flotus social media ccounts previously carried the name and official portrait of Joe Biden and Jill Biden, respectively.
Donald Trump became US president for the second time on Monday, January 20 and quickly set about issuing a flurry of executive orders and directives asserting his political agenda. Trump’s agenda ranged from withdrawing the US from the World Health Organisation, to declaring a national emergency at the border with Mexico.
His inauguration was well attended by some of the most influential tech billionaires, including his notable ally and X chief Elon Musk and Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg.
Trump has previously been heavily critical of Meta, which banned him in 2021 for what it described as his “praise for people engaged in violence” during the 6 January riots at the US Capitol.
The US president and his allies have also accused the firm of co-operating with the Biden administration to hush reports concerning allegations about Biden’s son, Hunter, and some content surrounding the Covid pandemic – an action Zuckerberg has said he regretted.
Consequently in August, Trump wrote in a book that Mr Zuckerberg would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he tried to interfere in the 2024 presidential election.
But surprisingly, since Trump’s election win in early November, Zuckerberg appears to have curried favour with him, dining with the US President at his Mar-a-Lago residence at the end of the month and donating $1m (£786,000) towards his inauguration few weeks later.
