Follow Biden Or Harris On Instagram, Facebook? Chances Are You're Now Following Trump Or Vance

Social media followers of the president, first lady and vice president were surprised to learn that they now follow people they may not have wanted to after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president on Monday.

What Happened: Users of Instagram and Facebook, which are owned by Meta Platforms Inc. META, have experienced several recent changes including CEO Mark Zuckerberg announcing the end of content moderation teams.

Instagram and Facebook users who followed Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Jill Biden over the past several years were also surprised to find themselves now following Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and Melania Trump after Monday.

Users were quick to blame Meta Platforms and cite the potential influence of Zuckerberg, who has been cozying up to Trump in recent months. Zuckerberg attended the inauguration and Meta recently donated $1 million to the president's inauguration fund.

Some users reported they were unable to unfollow the accounts of the new political leaders, including singer Demi Lovato, as reported by Variety.

"I have unfollowed this guy twice today," Lovato said of the @vp account now belonging to Vance. "Shady f***ing business meta."

Meta contends they have done nothing wrong and this is the practice done in past presidential transitions. The official accounts for @potus, @vp and @flotus have been transferred over to the new people in those roles, while keeping the same followers and the content being wiped clean and archived to other accounts.

"People were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the president, vice president or first lady," Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a post on Threads. "Those accounts are managed by the White House so with a new administration, the content on those Pages changes."

Stone said the same changes took place when Biden took over as president for Trump in 2021. One potential difference is the ability to unfollow these particular accounts.

"It may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands," Stone added.

Users can follow and unfollow other accounts without any problem as of time of writing of this article.

Here are the current follower accounts for several mentioned Instagram accounts:

@potus (now Trump): 16.8 million
@realdonaldtrump (his existing account): 31.2 million
@potus46archive (Joe Biden's old account): 18.7 million
@flotus (now Melania Trump): 4.1 million
@flotus46archive (Jill Biden's old account): 4.1 million
@joebiden (Joe Biden's existing account): 17 million
@vp (now Vance): 15.7 million
@vp46archive (Harris's old account): 16.9 million
@kamalaharris (Kamala Harris's existing account): 19.6 million

The accounts had the same number of followers when they were archived as they did for the new account holder. This means that the VP and POTUS accounts have lost followers since the transition took place.

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X Does It A Little Differently: Social media accounts with the names POTUS, VP and FLOTUS belong to the people in those roles. The question is how to manage the transition.

With users upset, the question now becomes whether social media companies should have to alert users that they are now following new people or if the accounts should start over from 0.

Platform X, which is owned by Trump-ally Elon Musk, chooses to do the latter.

Followers of the @potus, @vp and @flotus accounts on X saw those accounts change names to archived accounts. Users were not forced to follow the @potus, @vp and @flotus accounts once again as they started from 0 with the new names and faces attached.

Here's a look at the current follower accounts on X:

@potus: 1.5 million
@potus46archive: 37 million
@potus45: 31.4 million
@potus44: 12.9 million
@flotus: 116.1 thousand
@flotus46archive: 4.4 million
@vp: 424.9 thousand
@vp46archive: 14.9 million

Many politicians have existing accounts and use the official White House accounts along with their own personal ones. This means outgoing parties like Biden and Harris have their own accounts they will now use. For reference, here are the followers on those accounts along with former President Barack Obama:

Biden: 38.2 million
Harris: 21.0 million
Trump: 99.1 million
Obama: 130.8 million

Obama is ranked as the second most-followed person on X, trailing only Musk (213.7 million). Trump's personal account ranks eighth currently.

According to data from SocialBlade, the @potus account ended Jan. 20 with 702,038 followers.

Trump's personal account has added 2.7 million followers over the past 30 days, averaging a gain of 89,571 daily. Biden's personal account has lost 33,118 followers over the past 30 days, averaging a daily loss of 1,104 a day.

Social media users should be aware of these policies and know who they are following as it may have changed after Monday.

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