Featured Image Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Topics: Donald Trump, Politics, US News, Instagram, Social Media
Rhiannon Ingle
Topics: Donald Trump, Politics, US News, Instagram, Social Media
Meta has revealed the 'real reason' you might be following Donald Trump on Instagram without meaning to.
Just a matter of days after the inauguration, social media users began to notice something very strange happening.
Namely, they discovered they were following both the Republican leader and his vice president, JD Vance, despite not having any memory of doing so.
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According to Meta, this allegedly occurred because these Instagram users were already following White House accounts before Trump and Vance took their oaths.
Meta communications spokesperson, Andy Stone, wrote on Threads yesterday (22 January): "People were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the President, Vice President or First Lady.
"Those accounts are managed by the White House so with a new administration, the content on those Pages changes. This is the same procedure we followed during the last presidential transition.
"It may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands."
This means that if you followed those accounts during one administration, you would still be following them as the administration changes over.
After Trump took office, the Facebook and Instagram accounts of now-former president Joe Biden were archived - for example, his Instagram account is now @potus46archive.
Trump’s official White House account, however, is @potus.
The @potus46archive account still has its followers, which were also transferred to the new @potus account.
So, in short, if anyone was following Joe Biden, Jill Biden or Kamala Harris' official accounts, they'd reportedly automatically follow the new president, first lady and vice president which, in this case, is Trump, Melania Trump and Vance.
The news comes after people were left seriously shocked after realising what Meta’s new rules actually allow people to say online.
Not only has the technology company announced the scrapping of its old fact-checking system, which was first introduced back in 2016, replacing it with a system similar to X’s Community Notes, but it's also updated its 'Hateful Conduct' policy, which now allows for posts that call LGBTQ+ people 'mentally ill'.
"We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like 'weird'," the policy reads.
Under the policy, Meta users can post about 'gender-based limitations of military, law enforcement, and teaching jobs' as well as use 'sex or gender-exclusive language' in describing 'access to spaces often limited by sex or gender, such as access to bathrooms, specific schools, specific military, law enforcement, or teaching roles, and health or support groups'.
The new policy also will now allow women to be referred to as 'household objects'.
An official Meta statement added: "We're getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity, and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate.
"It's not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of [US] Congress, but not on our platforms."
Tyla has previously reached out to Meta for comment following the announcement of its new rules.