Since Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, Facebook and Instagram users have been noticing that they are now following the official accounts of both the president and vice president.
Meta — the parent company of Instagram and Facebook — has pointed out that the POTUS, FLOTUS, and VP accounts are all attributed to the White House, and that when the administration changes, the accounts are automatically transferred.
Meta Communications Director Andy Stone has commented that Meta is experiencing “an issue affecting people’s ability to search for a number of different hashtags on Instagram — not just those on the left. We’re working quickly to resolve this,” he added on Threads.
However, this does not account for the fact that users online have said that they were never following any official political accounts, even during the Biden administration.
The POTUS and VP accounts also contain a label that says that they were both activated in January 2025, which some users have pointed out. The old VP and POTUS accounts, used by Kamala Harris and former president Joe Biden, are still accessible on the Instagram app and can be followed separately from the seemingly new VP and POTUS accounts.
At Monday’s inauguration, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was seated with other tech leaders and CEOs — in front of Trump’s own cabinet picks, seemingly indicating a close alignment with the new presidential administration.
And now, some celebs have called out Meta — saying that even though they’re manually unfollowing the accounts, the problem remains.
Demi Lovato shared a post on their story yesterday from an account claiming that Meta was making users auto-follow JD Vance and President Trump.
Demi then posted a screenshot of their account following JD Vance. “I have unfollowed this guy twice today,” the story read. “Shady fucking business meta.”
Gracie Abrams was another celeb who shared a similar sentiment. Yesterday the “That’s So True” singer uploaded a story that read, “hello! I had to unfollow @VP and @POTUS three (3) separate times today because @meta kept automatically refollowing the accounts. How curious!”
“Had to block them to make sure I am nowhere near that. Sharing in case this is happening to your account as well xoxo,” she added.
Users online have noticed that a few unexpected celebs are also now following one or both of the accounts and are speculating that Meta’s alleged “refollowing” may be the cause.
One user on X pointed out that Rihanna was now following the VP account, despite not following @POTUS. Rihanna was a notable critic of the Trump campaign, calling out Republicans for “burning ballot boxes” back in November.
And it’s not just Riri — since Monday, Shawn Mendes, Justin Bieber, and Hailey Bieber have all been called out by users online for following Vance. Hailey has since unfollowed the account.
We have reached out to Meta for comment about the alleged re-following issues, but have not yet received a response.
What are your thoughts? Have you also noticed that you’re now following the POTUS and VP accounts on Instagram? LMK in the comments.
