Why you might suddenly follow Trump on Instagram and Facebook

On Tuesday, the day after President Donald J. Trump’s inauguration, many Instagram and Facebook users found themselves following him on social media apps even though they hadn’t signed up to do so.

What gives?

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said this is part of a regular process by which White House social media accounts are transferred when a new president takes office. He added that there were other bugs in the process that could have messed up the transition.

Let’s review what happened.

Why do I follow Donald Trump, Melania Trump and JD Vance on Instagram and Facebook?

Just as the federal government must manage the transition of power between administrations, Meta must also deal with it.

For years, companies like Meta and This accelerated after Barack Obama took office in 2008 and fully embraced social media to garner voter support digitally. In 2016, businesses had to figure out how to move these accounts between jurisdictions.

Meta and X decided that the official POTUS, VP and first lady accounts on Facebook, Instagram and This means that if you followed President Obama in 2016, you automatically switched to follow President Trump when he took office in his first administration in 2017. Mr. Obama’s posts were archived under a different handle, while Mr. Trump’s account was reset to none. Mr. Obama’s former positions attached.

This transition occurred again in 2020, when Joseph R. Biden Jr. was elected and took over the official account of the president. On Monday, after Mr. Trump was sworn in, the change happened again. That’s why you might be seeing his posts in your feed now.