Shortly after Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on Monday, many Facebook users started to report that the social network automatically made them follow Trump’s Facebook page. I’ve seen several threads on this issue on Reddit, social media, and people I know personally have also asked me why Facebook made them follow Trump.
While Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made it very clear that he and his company are making changes to endear Meta to the Republican president, there is a much less nefarious explanation for why people suddenly saw Facebook posts from Trump even though they don’t remember following him. When reached for comment, Facebook Communications Director Andy Stone directed me to his posts on Threads which points out how government social media accounts work and change with the current administration.