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Meta, in a statement, denied claims that they "forced" some users to follow social media accounts belonging to Donald Trump and JD Vance. The statement comes after Meta platform Facebook and Instagram users claimed that they were "automatically" following the official social media accounts of Donald Trump and JD Vance after Trump's Presidential inauguration on January 20.
Users, including singer Gracie Abrams, claimed that they were unable to unfollow the accounts after trying to do so. Meta, while denying the claims, noted that the president and vice president's accounts are linked to the U.S. offices and supporters that earlier followed the previous presidential Biden administration still do so despite Trump and Vance taking control of the accounts from Biden and Kamala Harris.
"People were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the president, vice president or first lady. Those accounts are managed by the White House so with a new administration, the content on those pages changes."
The statement also noted,
"This is the same procedure we followed during the last presidential transition. It may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands."
After Meta issued the statement, social media users took to X, questioning the procedure.
"unfollow requests never needed time to go through they just be saying anything" - a user added.
"Yea I’m sure we’re gonna believe this when zuck and other tech CEO’s were doing tricks on it at the inauguration" - another user added.
"Mark...nobody's trusting you please shut up" - a user stated.
"will they also deny hiding all content related to democrats like #democrats or #kamalaharris?" - a user claimed.
Meta accused of allegedly siding with Donald Trump's administration
U.S. tech billionaires, including Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and more, are accused of allegedly siding with Donald Trump's administration. Meta had earlier donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund, and Zuckerberg flew to Mar-a-Lago to dine with Trump and members of his transition team shortly after his victory in November.
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As per reports, Zuckerberg's decision to end its fact-checking program and replace it with "community-notes" was also driven by the Trump administration.
The world's richest man, Elon Musk, also backed Trump's presidential campaign with his funds and high profile. As per DW, Musk donated more than $119 million to a political action committee, "America PAC," to elect Trump.
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