Some Instagram Users Are Saying the Platform Automatically Made Them Follow POTUS

Following the inauguration of Donald Trump, some Instagram users are claiming that their accounts are now automatically following the POTUS Instagram account. These changes were alarming to many, especially those who might not find themselves naturally aligned with the positions of the incoming administration.

If you're wondering why your account is suddenly following Donald Trump, Meta has an explanation for you. Here's what we know.

If you're one of the people whose Instagram account is suddenly following POTUS, Meta has said that's likely because you were previously following some sort of government account.

Meta spokesman Andy Stone explained in a Threads post that the official POTUS and White House accounts are managed by the current administration, which means that they changed hands from Biden to Trump when Trump was inaugurated.

So, while some users may have believed that Meta was automatically forcing its followers to follow Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, that doesn't seem to be the case. Instead, users who were following Joe Biden's accounts are now following Donald Turmp's, and are realizing that they'll have to unfollow the POTUS account if they want to stop seeing President Trump's posts.

In addition to automatically following POTUS, some people were also still following the official vice president's account and were therefore confused when it switched over to J.D. Vance. The same logic applies there, though, and Meta didn't do anything untoward.

One of the reasons that some accused Meta of automatically making them follow Trump is the recent announcements from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the ways that Meta is changing its approach to political content.

These changes seemed to be quite clearly the result of pressure from the then-incoming Trump administration, and it seems that some thought that the next step in that chain would be for Meta to force users to automatically follow Trump and other members of his administration.

While it's definitely possible that Instagram's algorithm is going to recommend more Trump content, it doesn't seem like they are forcing their users to follow him.

Thankfully, Instagram is still giving its users at least some control over who they follow on the app. If you find yourself following Trump or the POTUS account, you can still unfollow him, which will also be a signal to the app's algorithm that you're not interested in the kind of content that account would post.

While plenty of people who didn't like Trump still followed him during his first administration, that seems to be less common this time around.

Trump will never be popular with roughly half of the country, and those people seem to not want to see any posts from the man unless they absolutely have to. Thankfully, Meta isn't forcing anyone to see his posts unless they want to. Even if they were, though, you could always just put down your phone.