Question asked by Rose on January 22, 2025.
After Donald Trump's return to the White House on Monday January 20, many Facebook and Instagram users discovered that they were now subscribed to the account of the 47th President of the United States and/or, depending on the case, to that of its vice-president, JD Vance. And this without having wanted it, nor having been informed of it. “I absolutely object to Meta adding Donald Trump and JD Vance to my Facebook following list. WTF!” reacted on the social network X the American political scientist Susan Platt, who was Joe Biden's chief of staff when he was a senator. “Facebook's latest move smacks of desperation: forcing users to follow Trump is a blatant violation of user independence. Zuckerberg's complacency toward political power undermines the very essence of free choice on social media. also comments on the “Distill Social” account. On Instagram, American artist Demi Lovato posted a “story” (an ephemeral publication) online on Tuesday, January 21, in which she shares a screenshot of JD Vance's account, and criticizes: “I unfollowed this guy twice today. A fucking shady affair Meta [le nom du groupe détenant Facebook et Instagram, ndlr].» Another star, Hailey Bieber, was singled out for allegedly showing “his love for the Trump presidency” by following the vice president's Instagram account.
If these unauthorized subscriptions appear if “shady”, This is because they occur in the midst of upheaval in the political alignment of Meta and its leader Mark Zuckerberg. In a video posted earlier this year, the CEO announced that he was ending the fact-checking program launched by Facebook in 2016, on behalf of “priority to expression”. Facing the camera, he explained that the election of Donald Trump in November largely influenced his decision. In the same speech, Zuckerberg also announced that all initiatives aimed at promoting diversity in his company will disappear, in accordance with Trump's plan to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs. In addition, Meta's boss, after donating $1 million to Trump's inauguration committee, sat ringside at the ceremony held on Monday. So many elements which fuel suspicions of collusion between the two men.
Archived accounts
Chez Liberation also, several journalists, as well as their relatives, reported involuntary subscriptions. In most cases, they followed JD Vance's account on Instagram, whose handle is “vp”, to «Vice President». Every time, CheckNews asked them to check if they were otherwise subscribed to the account with the handle “vp46archive”, also called “Vice President Kamala Harris Archived”. And that was the case for all of them. Because the explanation is ultimately rather simple: the subscribers of Kamala Haris, the “outgoing” vice-president, were split in favor of JD Vance, the “incoming” vice-president.
Concretely, a French Internet user who wanted to follow Kamala Harris' presidential campaign a few months ago was then able to subscribe to Kamala Harris' “vp” account, which was followed by more than 17 million people before Donald's inauguration Trump. With the arrival of the new administration, this account was archived, with all its data, content and subscribers. Hence the nickname “vp46archive”, Kamala Harris having held this position during the 46th presidency. To chronicle her activities, the democrat nevertheless maintains her personal account, to which nearly 20 million Internet users subscribe. At the same time, a new “vp” account was created for the benefit of JD Vance, who took office at the same time as Donald Trump, and inherited the 17 million subscribers who until then followed the former vice-president .
The same procedure was applied for the old and new Facebook accounts of the vice-presidency (VP46archive and VicePresident). And all the accounts of the old and new administration are in fact affected. The name “President Donald J. Trump” appears on the new Instagram and Facebook accounts with the nickname “POTUS”, the acronym designating the President of the United States of Americawhile Joe Biden's old accounts are now called “Potus46archive”. For their part, Melania Trump's collaborators took possession of the “FLOTUS” accounts, to First Lady of the United States of Americaand former first lady Jill Biden's accounts became “Flotus46archive.” Finally, new “WhiteHouse” accounts were created to share White House news, replacing the old ones now titled “WhiteHouse46archive”. Each time, the archived accounts retained their subscribers, who were also transferred, by default, to the new official accounts. A completely usual process in the United States.
-“Same procedure as the last presidential transition”
All these pages “are managed by the White House and change when the occupant of the White House changes”recalled Meta spokesperson Andy Stone on Monday evening on the social networks X and Threads (owned by Meta). “This is the same procedure as that followed during the last presidential transition,” he added Wednesday January 22, still on X and Threads. A statement supported by Katie Harbath, the former director of public policy at Facebook (between 2011 and 2021), who spoke on the same social networks. “My team put together the first ways of doing things when Trump won [une première fois] in 2016, and we had to figure out how to transfer the first official accounts created by President Obama's team. The same thing was done during the transfer from Trump to Biden [après la victoire de ce dernier en 2020]», she contextualized Monday evening. Katie Harbath details, on her X account: “It was decided that the contents of the old page would be archived. However, followers would remain assuming they followed the account as an institution, regardless of who held the post […] Internet users can, of course, unsubscribe. But this is a normal procedure with regard to political life.” The hypothesis is however not provided for in the conditions of use of these social networks (here for Facebook; there for Instagram), which simply provide that their users are suggested accounts and pages “likely to interest them”.
As Katie Harbath points out, the question initially arose in early 2017, when Barack Obama, the first “connected” president, left the keys to the White House to Donald Trump. During the Obama era, elected in 2008 then re-elected in 2012, his administration acquired accounts on Facebook, then on Twitter, YouTube, and finally Instagram. Ahead of Trump's first inauguration, the American media had therefore extensively documented the “digital” transition between the 44th and 45th American presidents. Business Insider then wrote: “On January 20, Mr. Trump will officially take office as president. It will also officially support all social media accounts. Before that, all messages from the Obama administration will be archived in special accounts created by the National Archives and Records Administration. For example, all tweets currently available on the @POTUS Twitter account will be found on @POTUS44 starting January 20. Trump will take control of @POTUS. He will keep the 11 million followers.”
“Unsubscribe requests may take some time”
To return to the case of the “vp” account on Instagram, the very first archive available (on the Internet Archive platform) dates back to April 2014, and the account was managed by the team of Joe Biden, then Obama's vice-president. An archived version in 2017 attests that the account had indeed been transferred to Mike Pence, the vice-president then chosen by Donald Trump.
One question remains. On Tuesday, several Instagram users (including Demi Lovato according to her story) reported that despite their repeated attempts, they were unable to unsubscribe from the account of JD Vance, Trump's new vassal. Wednesday January 22, this functionality was, according to user feedback obtained by CheckNewsnormally restored. Questioned among other things on this point, Meta is content to refer us to the publications of his spokesperson Andy Stone, where we read that “unsubscribe requests may take some time to be processed when accounts change hands”. In any case, having left with Kamala Harris' 17 million subscribers, JD Vance now has “only” 15 million, proof that the unsubscriptions have indeed taken effect.
Related News :