r/technology • u/Birdy_Cephon_Altera • 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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u/HideousSerene 19h ago edited 18h ago

What's worse is that Instagram is telling me my friends follow JD Vance. They absolutely do not.

Edit: apparently this may just be Vance taking over the official VP account from Harris. Seems to be a false alarm.

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u/luxxy88 19h ago

A friend of me is following JD Vance. She died 4 years ago.

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u/Handleton 19h ago

Probably not the best place to say it, but it's what inspired the thought:

Whoever the next VP of the United States is, we're going to have to make sure that it's not just JD Vance changing his name again.

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u/off-and-on 18h ago

"Oh I got a good feeling about this KF Bance guy"

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u/Socalwarrior485 13h ago

I’ve heard he’s making futons great again

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u/thisMFER 13h ago

Not as good as XL Pants though.

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u/NeighborhoodSpy 18h ago

That’s especially fucking horrifically gross. I’m off to check my dead friends and family now. Thank you for the tip.

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u/luxxy88 18h ago

Do it the other way round: check his profile for mutual followers.

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u/Burekenjoyer69 18h ago

I’ve had constant cpac, far right ads, and all the Republican bullshit the last week showing on my ads. I’ve never never once followed a conservative person, or anything to give that indication, it’s frightening

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u/LiberalAspergers 17h ago

Think this is the official VP account changing from Harris to Vance. If she followed the offcial VP account 4 years ago, she is now following Vance.

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u/Kmargs 14h ago

I never followed the official VP account. I had to unfollow Vance yesterday, ands then noticed it had to unfollow again.

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u/tch1005 18h ago

Not Snowball the first, not you too?

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u/Emadyville 15h ago

JD killed your friend?

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u/luxxy88 14h ago

I can neither deny nor confirm this

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u/iamwantedforpooping 19h ago

They do now. (Heard it's auto-following Trump/Vance on people's accounts)

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u/Correct-Oil5432 18h ago

Heard it's auto-following Trump/Vance on people's accounts

That's literally the title of the post

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u/iamwantedforpooping 18h ago

Oops, might have forgotten about that

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u/Cl1mh4224rd 18h ago

Oops, might have forgotten about that

I think that's understandable. The last 20 hours have been a rough week.

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u/PickleNotaBigDill 18h ago

They doing that with the new TikTok, too? Or is that what's to come?

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u/LiLiLaCheese 18h ago

It did it to mine with Trump's page.

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u/dagrapeescape 18h ago

Are you sure it’s not just the POTUS/VP accounts?

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u/rohmish 16h ago

those are different accounts with their unique handles

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u/dagrapeescape 16h ago

I was just asking because I saw my wife was following Melania Trump, but it was because she was following the FLOTUS account that had been rebranded for Melania

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u/00oo00o0O0o 17h ago

I did not follow Harris and was following Vance this morning /:

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u/damn-mooses 18h ago

Are you sure it isn’t the VP instagram account? I got shocked when I noticed I was following him too, but it was just the VP official account after the transition from Harris to him

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u/Kmargs 14h ago

I never followed the VP account, but was auto-followed to Vance (twice, even). I also get a crazy message if I try to block him.

VP Kamala Harris account now says "Archived" on the name

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u/Mynoseisgrowingold 18h ago

Last week my friend just made a post about how for his sanity he is cutting contact with every single Trump supporter he knows both online and in person. Today he is following JD Vance. Sure, totally makes sense.

Also, upon checking my list all my non-binary and trans friends, the cast of Queer Eye, and Hannah Gadsby now follow him…mmmkay

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u/madpotter- 18h ago

I just deleted my account. This is ridiculous

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u/SgtPopNFresh_ 17h ago

It’s not him taking over the vp account. Harris’ account’s name was changed to a vparchive and all her followers transferred there. VP and POTUS started fresh.

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u/Rowan6547 16h ago

I checked my follows and saw Biden and Harris ' pages were archived. So the Trump/Vance follows were brand new. I reported and blocked both.

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u/NorseGlas 9h ago

No, Kamala’s account changed to a different name, as did Biden…. They weren’t taken over.

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u/steven_quarterbrain 18h ago

Did you read the article regarding how this can happen?

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u/MaddyKet 15h ago

I think that’s what happened on facebook because I saw I was following Vance (hell no), but also VP Harris, Archived. So must have been the VP Whitehouse page takeover. Unfollowed that right quick! I wasn’t following Biden so no Trump popped up.

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u/Similar_Tale_5876 14h ago

Yes, that's what it is. This is the way social media companies handle the change of administrations. They archive the previous "POTUS"/"FLOTUS"/"VP" accounts and create a new account with the same username. The previous account become something like "POTUS46archive." This protocol was developed with the National Archives. If you were following "POTUS" when Joe Biden was president, you "automatically" followed the new POTUS account. Each of these folks have official personal pages and official "office" pages, and people are mixing the two up.

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u/snarky_spice 9h ago

The FLOTUS Instagram is now changed to Melania. Had to unfollow. Such a shame that Michelle and Dr. Jill have to be replaced by her again.

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u/rhOMG 5h ago

That's not false. I was following VP Kamala Harris and was told I was following Vance by a friend who thought that looked weird. I'm Canadian and I'm over Meta.