Some Facebook and Instagram users are shocked to find themselves following Donald Trump and his Vice President, despite claims they never followed - or even blocked - the accounts.
Kiwi news Instagram account @shityoushouldcareabout posted a bunch of complaints about the unintentional follows, claiming that the @POTUS and @VP follower counts are growing rapidly.
One message claims the @POTUS Instagram account jumped from 8.9 million followers to 17 million in just 45 minutes. Another reports that even after unfollowing, users have been “forced” to re-follow the accounts.
Others suggest blocking the accounts isn’t enough to escape the mass follow.
Just an hour ago, someone shared a screenshot on X showing the official POTUS Instagram account at 18.9 million followers. At the time of writing, that number has risen to over 20.1 million.
So why are so many people suddenly following these accounts? One reason may be quite simple.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone addressed the issue in a Threads post, explaining that the official POTUS and White House Facebook accounts are managed by the White House and “change when the occupant of the White House changes.” The same applies to the accounts for the U.S. Vice President and First Lady.
However, not everyone is convinced, especially on the Instagram front.
If you check the “About This Profile” section for both @POTUS and @VP, it shows these accounts joined the platform in January 2025 as new profiles with one prior username.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s POTUS account remains active under the handle @potus46archive, with its existing 18.7 million followers.
We’re definitely going to need answers about the sudden mass follows on these accounts.
This is all going down during the height of distrust between social media users and the US government.
Meanwhile, there are serious concerns about certain political search terms being censored on TikTok and Instagram, with ‘#democrat’ seemingly returning no search results while ‘#republican’ thrives. This has bred speculation and conspiracy theories about Trump’s involvement in the running of major social media platforms.
Meta has argued that it’s a technical problem that has affected many hashtags and search results, however Social media expert Matt Navarra told the BBC that the incident was still “embarrassing”.
“In a hyper-partisan environment, even unintentional errors like this can escalate into accusations of partisanship,” he told the outlet.
If these issues are not resolved quickly they risk fuelling conspiracy theories and damaging Meta’s reputation.
Love it or hate it, social media’s where we get and share alot of our info these days, so it’s important it’s run right - things are getting pretty sketchy out here.
