Suspicious Instagram users slam app over strange thing happening with Donald Trump and JD Vance’s accounts

Instagram users have hit out at the app after noticing something change in relation to Donald Trump and JD Vance's accounts.

There's been no shortage of headline-making moments following the president's inauguration this week, from Trump's infamous 'red button' making a return to his scathing response to Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde's plea for 'mercy' and even Melania Trump's mysterious following list on Instagram.

Not to mention the slew of executive orders Trump has already signed just hours after moving into the Oval Office.

But just days after the inauguration, Instagram users began to notice something strange on their Instagram.

Namely they discovered they were following both the Republican leader and Vance despite not having any memory of doing so.

Naturally, many rushed straight to X to share their confusion, with one person asking: "Is this a glitch why is everyone following Vance? Also why does he have so many more followers than Trump something's wrong (these are all proud liberals?? Frankie Grande hello)."

A second hit out: "The amount of people on Instagram who I know that follow Trump and Vance is genuinely embarrassing and scary. What the actual f*ck."

"Instagram making people automatically follow Trump and Vance is wild," declared a third, while Demi Lovato even slammed: "I have unfollowed this guy twice today. Shady f*cking business Meta."

What has Meta said about it?

According to Meta, this allegedly occurred because such Instagram users were already following White House accounts before Trump and Vance took their oaths.

The changes were simply part of standard procedure during administrative turnover with Meta spokesperson, Andy Stone, writing on X: "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."

This basically 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 automatically follow the new president, first lady and vice president which, in this case, is Trump, Melania Trump and Vance.

On Facebook, Biden’s archived page is called 'President Joe Biden Archived' and has the same amount of followers - 11 million - as Trump’s official page which is called 'President Donald J. Trump'.

Katie Harbath, Facebook's former election boss whose team set up the transfer of social media power, confirmed Stone's comments.

"My team set up the first ways of having to do this when Trump won in 2016 and we had to transfer the official accounts that President Obama's team created when Facebook pages were first created," she wrote on Threads.

"Same was done during the transfer from Trump to Biden. The old ones go to an archived account and the followers remain, but the feed is wiped clean. Most platforms handle it this way."

Tyla has reached out to Meta for further comment.