Meta courted Trump; now comes the backlash from Facebook, Instagram users
If you were surprised to see yourself suddenly following President Donald Trump on Instagram and Facebook this week, it’s not because Meta forced you to, the social media company says.
The apps’ @POTUS, @FLOTUS and @VP accounts transfer over with each new administration.
But online, unfounded claims swirled that Meta had worked with the new Trump administration to promote their accounts. Some even speculated the company had acquired TikTok over the weekend to further consolidate Americans’ social media options. Some called for a boycott of Meta platforms, which include Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp.
“If TikTok is gone, they get all the ad money back,” said one video, discussing Meta’s alleged involvement in the ban. “And taking all your data for themselves in the meantime.”
“This is the same procedure we followed during the last presidential transition,” Meta spokesman Andy Stone said on Threads on Wednesday. “It may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands.”
Meta has been the regular subject of controversy for years - protesters organized an early “Quit Facebook Day” in 2010 over what they said were confusing and limited privacy controls. More than a decade later, the short-lived ban on competing app TikTok, combined with a new president flanked by tech billionaires at his inauguration, set off a new wave of anti-Meta frustration and paranoia this week among users. Many took to the internet to wonder aloud about the perils of mass data collection and alleged government-controlled social media. Some are deleting their accounts in protest. Others are settling in for the ride.
Michael Raine, 50, stayed on Facebook and Instagram while the apps weathered other scandals, such as when a whistleblower revealed internal research in 2021 indicating that Instagram harms the mental health of young girls. But when Meta adjusted its content policies this January to stop third-party fact-checking and relaxed its rules around hate speech, Raine reconsidered.
He didn’t want to see anti-LGBTQ+ content on his feed, he said. He also didn’t want to contribute to the sprawling wealth of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who stood behind Trump during his Monday inauguration along with other tech billionaires.
“I can’t imagine that I personally can make any difference in their wealth, power or influence,” he said. “But I can’t be a part of offering them my life and my joy to then turn it back around and make money off of me.”
Seeing chatter on TikTok about Meta’s data collection sealed the deal, Raine said. He has been reaching out to a list of about 50 friends he would like to stay in touch with out of his about 9,000 Facebook connections, he said. When he is done, he says he will delete the account.
This isn’t the first time ire around Meta, which the Federal Trade Commission accused of being a monopoly in 2020, has sparked an exodus. In 2018 the discovery that political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had harvested data from more than 87 million Facebook users for political advertising led some users - including the business pages for Elon Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX - to quit. Last year, artists on Instagram organized to leave the app in protest of Meta’s AI training policies.
The incidents haven’t stopped Meta’s money and user base from growing: It reported $40.59 billion in revenue during the third quarter of 2024, a 19 percent increase from the year before according to financial filings. And while the share of U.S. teens who use Facebook plummeted from 71 percent in 2014 to 32 percent in 2024, according to Pew Research, the app saw growth among users ages 18 to 29 last year due to Marketplace and Groups features, Meta has said.
But for some young users who were children or teens during PR meltdowns such as Cambridge Analytica, the recent crop of critical claims about Meta may be the first they have entertained. Some videos on TikTok accused Zuckerberg of orchestrating the app’s ban - and indeed, Meta paid a consulting firm to malign TikTok. Others asked why Meta hasn’t received the same legal treatment as TikTok if it also collects vast amounts of hyper-specific user information. A few poked fun at Zuckerberg’s recent statements on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast about “culturally neutered” workplaces with insufficient “masculine energy.”
Others spread unsupported claims about Meta’s relationship with the Trump administration after many were startled to see themselves following Trump, Vice President JD Vance and first lady Melania Trump. Meta spokesman Stone said on Threads that the accounts for those positions change with each new administration.
Rasheq Zarif, a 43-year-old in San Francisco, said he is seriously considering leaving Facebook in light of Zuckerberg’s presence at Trump’s inauguration and the company’s recent policy changes eliminating fact-checking.
“I have done my best to block and unfollow specific content that’s being pushed to me, but the amount of content that’s irrelevant or trying to skew my opinions is overwhelming,” he said.
A Silicon Valley veteran, Zarif sees the industry’s alignment with the new administration as a sign that Trump will have more influence over the tech industry going forward.
Users who don’t like it have limited options for pushing back. A Washington Post investigation in 2021 found that Facebook collects data about you even when you’re not using the app or don’t have an account.
As for Zarif, he said leaving social media could give this generation an opportunity to connect with what’s important in their lives. “Pick up the phone and call a friend.”