People Are Complaining Their Facebook Accounts Auto-Followed Trump — Here's What Happened

The same day Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term as the 47th President of the U.S., folks flooded Reddit with concerns about their Facebook accounts auto-following Trump. Of course, the follow wasn’t mutual, as Trump is only following eight people.

Among the complainers, there seems to be a pattern of whose accounts are allegedly auto-following Trump. Here’s what we know about the so-called Trump auto-follow Facebook fiasco and how to check your own followers to see if the now-standing president is unexpectedly lurking in there.

In a Reddit thread started on Jan. 20, hundreds of comments and votes poured in within hours. Redditor @Piper_Dear kicked things off, writing, "Facebook made my profile auto-follow Trump," alongside a screenshot showing the president’s account popping up in her feed.

Another commenter chimed in, "Same here!! That's it … I'll be off all Meta products shortly." Meanwhile, someone else admitted the same thing happened to them, but they also noticed their account had started following Vice President JD Vance in addition to Trump.

User @BenneWaffles shared an even stranger claim, saying their account auto-followed Trump but unfollowed Biden.

While there seems to be a recurring theme among those reporting the issue — that they’re not exactly fans of the 47th president — Mark Zuckerberg didn’t hatch a devious scheme to make anti-Trump users follow him. The explanation is actually much simpler.

Facebook accounts aren’t auto-following Trump. The mix-up seems to stem from users confusing the @POTUS Facebook page with Trump’s personal account. If you were following @POTUS, the official account for the President of the United States, it was automatically transferred to Trump when he was sworn in on Jan. 20.

So, if you were following Joe Biden under @POTUS, your Facebook account continues to follow @POTUS, which now belongs to Trump. Once the transition of power occurred, the @POTUS page changed hands to reflect the new administration.

While it may look like Trump’s personal page at first glance, the handle @POTUS indicates that this page will update again in four years to represent the next president, along with a new profile picture and content.

This would also explain why some believe their accounts "unfollowed" Biden. However, if you weren’t following @POTUS or @DonaldTrump to begin with and your account randomly added either to your list of follows, well, that’s just plain weird.

To check if Trump has randomly appeared in your friends list on Facebook, which would show up as @POTUS or @DonaldTrump, log in to your account and scroll down to the "Friends" section on the left side of the page. Click "See All Friends" to view a list of everyone you're friends with.

At the top of the "Friends" box, there's a search bar that can help you find specific people. If you have a lot of friends on Facebook and want to see if Donald Trump is among them, simply type his name in the search box. If he appears and you'd prefer not to have him there, you can easily remove him.