Following the inauguration, many people went on social media to find that they were following the new president.

If you were surprised to see yourself suddenly following President Donald Trump on Instagram and Facebook this week, it’s not because Meta forced you to, the social media company says.

It said follow and unfollow requests may take time as the accounts switch hands to the new Trump administration.

When a presidential administration changes, the official White House social media accounts roll over to the new elected officials. That happened in 2017 and 2021, when Trump succeeded Barack Obama as president,

Shortly after Trump was sworn as president, Facebook users reported their accounts were forced to automatically follow him. Not exactly.

Meta, the company which owns social media networks Facebook and Instagram, has denied forcing users to follow official accounts belonging to senior figures in the new Trump administration. Some users of the platforms had complained following Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday that they had "automatically" been made to follow the new president,