Meta, the company that 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 complained after Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday that they were “automatically” prompted to follow the new president, as well as Vice President JD Vance and first lady Melania Trump.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone explained that the accounts are managed by the White House, which has updated them to reflect new job holders.
“This is the same procedure we followed during the last presidential transition,” he wrote in a statement.
The bills bear the name Potus — meaning “President of the United States” — as well as Vice President and Flotus, an acronym for the first lady.
Archived versions of the pages show that the Potus and Flotus accounts previously carried the name and official portrait of Joe Biden and Jill Biden, respectively.
Mr Stone added that it “may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands”.
Trump became US president for a second term on Monday and quickly moved to issue a raft of executive orders and directives cementing his policy agenda – ranging from withdrawing from the World Health Organization until declaring a national emergency on the border with Mexico.
They attended his inauguration some of the most powerful tech billionairesincluding Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg and X boss Elon Musk, who also has an advisory role in the new administration.
Trump has previously been highly critical of Metta, which banned him in 2021. for what he described as his “glorification of people involved in violence” during the January 6 riots at the US Capitol.
The president and his allies also accused the firm of collaborating with the Biden administration to suppress reports about allegations about Biden's son, Hunter, and some content surrounding the Covid pandemic. Mr. Zuckerberg said he regretted the decision.
Trump wrote in a book in August that Mr Zuckerberg would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he tried to interfere in the 2024 presidential election.
Since Trump's election victory in early November, however, Mr. Zuckerberg appears to have become addicted to him, dinner with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence at the end of the month and donating $1 million (£786,000) to his inauguration a few weeks later.
Meta also said earlier this month that it would end third-party fact-checking in favor of an approach similar to X's community notes, in an apparent attempt to address some of Trump's previous criticisms.
The company said it marks a return to its “fundamental commitment to free expression.”