Demi Lovato, Gracie Abrams call out Meta over auto-following Trump, Vance

American artists Demi Lovato and Gracie Abrams criticized Meta for preventing them from unfollowing social media accounts associated with Donald Trump and JD Vance.

With the transition of White House administrations, the official POTUS and VP accounts are being transferred, and some Instagram users are reporting difficulties unfollowing these accounts after Joe Biden and Kamala Harris left office.

“I have unfollowed this guy twice today,” Lovato shared on her Instagram Stories, alongside a screenshot of @VP’s profile, now under Vice President JD Vance. “Shady f***ing business, Meta.”

Similarly, Abrams experienced the same issue and shared her frustration on Instagram, writing, “Hello! I had to unfollow @vp and @potus three separate times today because @meta kept automatically re-following the accounts.” She continued, “How curious! Had to block them in order to make sure I am nowhere near that. Sharing in case this is happening to your account as well.”

Meta’s Communications Director, Andy M. Stone, addressed the issue and admitted to a problem caused by the transition between administrations in a post on Threads.

“People were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the President, Vice President, or First Lady,” Stone clarified. “Those accounts are managed by the White House, so with a new administration, the content on those Pages changes.”

Stone also reiterated, “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.”

Both Lovato and Abrams had publicly endorsed Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential bid. Abrams performed at one of Harris’ rallies in Madison, Wisconsin, in October. Meanwhile, after Harris lost the election to Trump on November 5, Lovato shared a message of hope on X, writing, “This was OUR election and WE WON TOGETHER. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but today we will celebrate each other.”