{"id":39005,"date":"2025-01-24T12:12:11","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T20:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=39005"},"modified":"2025-01-24T12:12:14","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T20:12:14","slug":"conspiracy-theories-fly-as-meta-users-find-themselves-suddenly-following-trump-and-jd-vance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/01\/24\/conspiracy-theories-fly-as-meta-users-find-themselves-suddenly-following-trump-and-jd-vance\/","title":{"rendered":"Conspiracy Theories Fly as Meta Users Find Themselves Suddenly Following Trump and JD Vance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

22 JANUARY 2025\/BUSINESS & TECH<\/a>\/JOE KUKURA<\/a> (SFist.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Millions of Facebook and Instagram users were shocked to find that they were suddenly following Donald Trump, JD Vance, and Melania Trump, but the company insists it was just the normal switching of official accounts that happens for every presidential transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last couple days since Donald Trump returned to office, many Facebook and Instagram users have complained that they suddenly find themselves following Donald Trump<\/a> on those platforms. And can you blame them for thinking that this was Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s latest capitulation to Trump? After all, those platforms\u2019 parent company Meta\u2019s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been kowtowing to Trump for months<\/a>, he attended Trump’s inauguration with a $1 million handout<\/a>, and  Meta just added the Trumper UFC president Dana White<\/a> to its board of directors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some people also saw they were suddenly following JD Vance and Melania Trump. So it was reasonable to assume that the fix was in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/x.com\/grandesubz\/status\/1881830729497358419?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1881830729497358419%7Ctwgr%5E8091db3a7ebe2716983af58869a05bb69a04decf%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsfist.com%2F2025%2F01%2F22%2Fconspiracy-theories-fly-as-meta-users-find-themselves-suddenly-following-trump-and-jd-vance%2F<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n


Not so, says Meta. CNBC reports that these were automatic transitions to the official @POTUS, @VP and @FLOTUS accounts<\/a>, neutral accounts that until Monday belonged to Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Jill Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/x.com\/brianstelter\/status\/1882113107092455681?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1882113107092455681%7Ctwgr%5E8091db3a7ebe2716983af58869a05bb69a04decf%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsfist.com%2F2025%2F01%2F22%2Fconspiracy-theories-fly-as-meta-users-find-themselves-suddenly-following-trump-and-jd-vance%2F<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n


\u201cPeople were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the President, Vice President or First Lady,\u201d Meta communication director. Andy Stone said on Threads<\/a>. \u201cThose 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a look at the comments on that Threads link<\/a> show remarks like \u201cMany users report having unfollowed and blocked those accounts, only to find they are following them again.\u201d And others used saltier language to explain they did not believe Stone\u2019s explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/x.com\/Independent\/status\/1882111907903275147?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1882111907903275147%7Ctwgr%5E8091db3a7ebe2716983af58869a05bb69a04decf%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsfist.com%2F2025%2F01%2F22%2Fconspiracy-theories-fly-as-meta-users-find-themselves-suddenly-following-trump-and-jd-vance%2F<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands,\u201d Stone said in his explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

So we\u2019ll see how this shakes out, and whether people are still following Trump\u2019s account even if they don\u2019t want to. But keep in mind that this is a relatively new process for Facebook and Instagram, as this is only the fourth presidential transition since official accounts for these offices were established under Obama\u2019s presidency. Oh, and Zuckerberg is laying a bunch of people off right now<\/a>, so there may be other happy accidents that favor Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related:<\/strong> Meta Continues Its Trump Turn, Adds UFC President Dana White to Its Board of Directors [SFist]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Screenshot via Instagram<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

22 JANUARY 2025\/BUSINESS & TECH\/JOE KUKURA (SFist.com) Millions of Facebook and Instagram users were shocked to find that they were suddenly following Donald Trump, JD Vance, and Melania Trump, but the company insists it was just the normal switching of official accounts that happens for every presidential transition. Over the… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39005"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39007,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39005\/revisions\/39007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}