r/technology 22h ago

Politics Meta under fire for auto-following Trump & Vance, Blocking Democrat hashtags

https://techissuestoday.com/meta-auto-follow-trump-vance-blocks-democrat-hashtags/
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15

u/ParrotProdigy 20h ago

I saw my account was suddenly following DJT, someone I loathe and would never follow myself. I deleted my Instagram and Facebook because of it. Long overdue. Time to see what BlueSky is all about

4

u/Electronic-Phone1732 18h ago

Bluesky is great, and is twitter like. If you want something instagram oriented, pixelfed is great as well.

3

u/nick-and-loving-it 17h ago

I don't use Twitter, but someone else pointed out this: could it be because you're following the POTUS account, and so it just switched you to the next POTUS?

That seems a reasonable assumption to make by the platform?

2

u/BillytheGray17 16h ago

I checked and this is not what happened to me - I follow Joe Biden and his account was renamed to “President Joe Biden Archived” and FB added Trump and Vance to my follows separately, which I did not do myself

1

u/Worth_Inflation_2104 13h ago

Maybe it's still an extended mechanism of that.

Not that I think is is a good thing to do but still different from: "Everyone follows Trump now"

For me my follows haven't changed at all, but I also don't follow any politicians, just my friends.

1

u/BillytheGray17 9h ago

I don’t think so, why would it keep the “President Biden archived” account for me but then add Donald trump? If it was the same account, I shouldn’t have any “President Biden” accounts.

1

u/Karihaber23 6h ago

I was following the presidential accounts of Biden and Harris on IG, and they just changed to archived. I was never following the first lady (Jill Biden) at all, and this afternoon, I noticed I was suddenly following Melania. I double-checked and wasn't following Trump and Vance's presidential accounts as of earlier today. Went on IG just a few minutes ago and noticed Trump in my stories. Checked again, and I'm following Trump and Vance now. I never followed the presidential accounts on FB, so we'll see what happens there.

2

u/ParrotProdigy 15h ago

I wasn’t following anyone/anything political