Shortly after Donald Trump was sworn in as President of the United States, some users found themselves suddenly following the official accounts of President Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and First Lady Melania Trump, even though they had never followed them in the first place. This has led some users to believe that Meta may be forcing users to follow the accounts of the president and others.
Meta came back to explain the situation, saying it was not a glitch but part of the normal process during presidential transitions and that if someone had followed these accounts in the past, they would still be following them after the transfer unless they actively unfollowed them again. Meta spokesman Andy Stone explained that this process has been in place for many years and was used during previous government transitions.
However, some users further added that despite actively unfollowing these accounts, they found themselves automatically following them again. Stone acknowledged that unfollow requests can take some time to process as accounts change hands.
Recently, users have also reported that Meta is deliberately hiding pro-democracy labels on its platform, and Meta has said this is a glitch and is working to return search results to normal.
Meta has been criticized for relaxing its guidance on hate speech after it introduced X-style community annotations on its platform in the US, but the annotations do not apply to paid posts such as ads. This potentially allows advertisers to publish false ads while paying Meta. Meta also said that fact-checkers will continue to work outside the United States for now and will refine community explanations before rolling them out to other regions.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is also believed to have strengthened his ties to Trump, including attending his inauguration and donating $1 million to his inaugural fund.