No, Meta isn’t forcing users to follow Trump. Here’s how the social media power transfer works

Soon after President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, some Facebook, Instagram and Threads users claimed Meta’s social media platforms forced them to follow Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

A Jan. 20 Facebook post said, "Facebook is automatically adding people to follow the new President Donald J. Trump, Vice President JD Vance and First Lady Melania Trump pages — without consent. I’m sure more are forthcoming. I don’t care who you voted for. This is wrong!!!!"

The post linked to the president’s, vice president’s and first lady’s official Facebook accounts: POTUS, VP and FLOTUS.

(Screenshot from Instagram)

A Jan. 21 Instagram post showed a screenshot of a user’s follower list that included the @potus and @vp accounts. Text above the image read, "Instagram automatically enrolled users to follow Trump and Vance."

Other Instagram and Threads users made similar claims. These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

Meta didn’t force users on Facebook, Instagram or Threads to follow Trump and Vance immediately after they assumed office. Users who noted this change likely followed the official U.S. government accounts under former President Joe Biden’s administration.

When there’s a transfer of presidential power, the former administration’s social media accounts are archived, and the usernames are passed to the new administration. This applies only to official government accounts and not personal accounts.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone posted Jan. 20 on Threads that the White House manages the official POTUS and White House accounts on Facebook.

"They change when the occupant of the White House changes," Stone wrote.

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Stone further clarified in a Jan. 22 Threads post that "people were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the President, Vice President or First Lady."

Stone wrote that Meta followed the same procedure as it did with the last presidential transition.

"It may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands," Stone wrote.

When PolitiFact contacted Meta, a spokesperson referred us to Stone’s Jan. 22 Threads post.

Katie Harbath, Facebook’s former director of public policy for global elections, echoed Stone’s post.

"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. Same was done during the transfer from Trump to Biden," Harbath posted Jan. 20 on Threads. "The old ones go to an archived account and the followers remain, but the feed is wiped clean. Most platforms handle it this way."

For example, Facebook archived Biden’s presidential account under the username "Potus46archive." It had 11 million followers as of Jan. 22.

Trump now has control over the "POTUS" username on Facebook; this official government account also had 11 million followers as of Jan. 22, reflecting the Facebook users who continued to follow the account after the presidential transition.

Facebook archived Trump’s first-term presidential account under "POTUS45."

Instagram and Threads did the same transfer and archiving with official government presidential, vice presidential and first lady accounts.

Users who do not wish to see these government accounts in their feeds can unlike, unfollow or block them.

We rate the claim that after the inauguration, Meta forced users to follow Trump and Vance on Facebook, Instagram and Threads False.