Many users of both social media sites were surprised to see President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance show up in their feeds since the two were sworn in on Monday.
This week, people opened the apps to find new posts from both the president’s and the VP’s official accounts, including an Instagram post from the POTUS account that reads “promises made, promises kept” across an image of Trump, and a photo from Vance’s VP account of Marco Rubio being sworn in as secretary of state.
Clicking through to the accounts then revealed that many people ― and their friends ― were even following either one or both Republicans.
It even happened in my own circle. As I was tapping through Instagram stories today, I noticed a handful of my friends posting about what they were seeing. Several coworkers also talked about their momentary confusion. Some users believed Meta ― the parent company of Facebook and Instagram ― was forcing people to follow the country’s new leaders.
Many people have already soured on Meta in recent weeks, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg coming under fire for changing company policies and protocols in an apparent effort to appease Trump. This week, Meta was also accused of hiding the search results for #democrat, which the company claims was a glitch.
But before you question Meta, yourself or your algorithm, don’t panic: The official @VP and @POTUS accounts, which you may have been following, switched over to the new administration as of yesterday.
That said, some Reddit users claimed they had never followed any of the official accounts, even when Joe Biden was in office. But Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Meta, said that’s what happened.
“The http://Facebook.com/POTUS and http://Facebook.com/WhiteHouse accounts are managed by the White House and they change when the occupant of the White House changes,” Stone posted on X.
This is also true for the official accounts of the vice president and first lady. The switchover is reportedly a standard practice for both Facebook and Instagram.
According to Katie Harbath, a previous Facebook employee who helped establish the process for presidential social media page transitions, “The old [social media accounts] go to an archived account and the followers remain, but the feed is wiped clean. Most platforms handle it this way,” Harbath said on Threads.
So, if you were already following the @POTUS account and/or the @VP account, you’ll now be following Trump and Vance instead of Biden and Harris. And, if you previously followed the @FLOTUS account, it’s also switched from Jill Biden to Melania Trump.
You can still keep up with the previous administration if you want. Here’s how.
The previous administration’s official accounts have been archived and can still be accessed at @potus46archive, @flotus46archive, @vp46archive and @secondgentleman46archive.
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You can continue to follow former President Biden at @joebiden, former first lady Jill Biden at @drbiden, former Vice President Kamala Harris at @kamalaharris, and former first gentleman Doug Emhoff at @douglasemhoff.
And if you don’t want to follow the Trump administration’s social media posts, you can simply go in and unfollow the accounts. This way, you won’t have to see updates unless you choose to.