Meta says that people have been automatically left following Donald Trump’s account – and admitted that some of them are unable to stop.
It suggested that technical problems meant that some people were currently unable to stop following Mr Trump’s official presidential account. But it made clear that users had not been automatically made to follow those accounts in the first place, as has been suggested.
Since Donald Trump became president, he also gained control of the official @Potus and @VP accounts on Instagram and Facebook. That led to complaints from users that they were following Mr Trump or his vice president JD Vance, despite not having asked to, since they were following those accounts when they were fronted by other politicians.
However, some – including singer Gracie Abrams – said that they had not only been forced to follow the account but were unable to stop doing so. She said that she had been required to unfollow the account three different times, and had been forced to block the account to ensure that she was not associated with it anymore.
Now, Meta has admitted that some people are having trouble unfollowing those accounts, but suggested that it would be fixed.
“It may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands,” said Meta communication director Andy Stone, in a statement in which he addressed the complaints more broadly.
“People were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the President, Vice President or First Lady,” he wrote on Threads. “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. It may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands.”
Earlier, Mr Stone had tweeted a “reminder” that those official accounts were run by the White House and therefore changed hands when the occupant of the office changed. Meta had at the time been understood to be investigating claims that it was not possible to unfollow those accounts.
