Following the transfer of power on Monday 20 January 2025, there also seemed to be a pretty disturbing transfer of social media accounts. In other words, the world woke up today to discover that the US government has handed over the official Instagram profiles of the Vice President of the United States and the President of the United States to the new administration. This means that if you had previously been following Kamala Harris and Joe Biden on Instagram, you will now be following JD Vance and Donald Trump, effective from the inauguration. Bummer.

A lot of confused netizens woke up to find that they were now following two of the most controversial politicians in American history on both Instagram and Facebook. So they quickly took to social media to share their outrage and confusion.

did anyone else open instagram to see jd vance in ur instagram feed even though you never followed him pic.twitter.com/8S21lYpP07

— Em🤍 (@darlinycsac) January 21, 2025

just thought i should give yall a heads up that instagram is making your accounts auto-follow jd vance and the POTUS account!!

— julia . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ (@CUNTMAMA) January 21, 2025

Something real off with META because why are we all following JD Vance’s Instagram account BY FORCE when we weren’t yesterday 🤔 pic.twitter.com/JN8YzfXw6s

— Kriti Gupta (@kritig96) January 21, 2025

Many began to suspect that Meta was making its users auto-follow the Trump government, giving rise to conspiracy theories about Mark Zuckerberg’s growing closeness with the new administration.

Others suspected that Vance and Trump were potentially buying followers.

JD Vance literally buying instagram followers and instagram allowing it pic.twitter.com/nN6oaxOeHZ

— ᯓ✦ Jules… (@julesxyv) January 21, 2025

why am I following Donald Trump and JD Vance on Facebook without my own doing or consent…. pic.twitter.com/h9XglrtNKC

— J💘 (@vipergirlxo) January 20, 2025

Why else would Jennifer Aniston, Rihanna, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), and the official Feminist account be following them all of a sudden? The math wasn’t mathing, so the internet naturally suspected foul play.

It even reached the point where stars like Demi Lovato came forward to address this odd change on their social media accounts.

Demi Lovato via Instagram calling out Meta for automatically following Trump and JD Vance from her account after trying to unfollow twice: pic.twitter.com/R4c7k36GWT

— Demi Lovato News (@justcatchmedemi) January 22, 2025

“I have unfollowed this guy twice today. Shady f*cking business Meta,” Lovato wrote in their stories.

Shortly after this, a long list of celebrities and vocal netizens started to unfollow the new administration and hit the “blocked” button, just to make sure it would stick.

“Had to block them in order to make sure I was nowhere near that. Sharing in case this is happening to your account as well,” singer Gracie Abrams shared on her story.

Of course, the president and VP already made some drastic changes to their accounts. The profile pictures are changed, a range of new images have been uploaded, and the bios have been changed.

For instance, Trump’s bio is now features with his new tagline: “The Golden Age of America Begins Right Now.” Meanwhile, Vance’s new official account introduces him as: “50th Vice President of the United States. Christian, husband, father. Proud to serve the American people with President Donald J. Trump.”

So, if you saw any of your friends or favourite celebrities follow the new US administration on Instagram or Facebook, don’t panic. They likely haven’t suddenly converted to MAGA Republicanism.

Instead, this is just a formality of the transfer of power and an informal reminder of who will be in charge for the next four years. Sigh, at least AOC is still a Democrat.