Meta said Facebook and Instagram users were not forced to follow Trump but that unfollowing the new White House accounts 'might take some time.'

Many Instagram users have complained that Meta has automatically enrolled them into following accounts for President Donald Trump without their consent.

Some Meta users said that they believed they were forced to follow Donald Trump and JD Vance’s pages, and that Instagram was blocking searches for the #democrat hashtag.

A couple of days after Trump's second inauguration, which saw him become the first convicted felon sworn in as President of the United States, some Instagram users are claiming their accounts have automatically followed Trump and his Vice President, JD Vance.

Mark Zuckerberg has come under fire for allegedly making users auto-follow the new White House occupants — now Meta has responded to the claims

Meta is denying claims that Facebook and Instagram users are being made to follow the president without consent.

Some Facebook and Instagram users were surprised this week to find that they were suddenly following the accounts of US President Donald Trump, Melania Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance on Instagram and Facebook.

After the POTUS account was switched from Joe Biden to Donald Trump, many of the users reacted surprisingly as one of the posts made it to their feed.

Meanwhile, Instagram users have been experiencing a strange issue when searching for hashtags related to the Democratic Party. Typing "#Democrat" or "#Democrats" yields a "results hidden" message, sparking accusations of political bias.

It said follow and unfollow requests may take time as the accounts switch hands to the new Trump administration.

Instagram users may have trouble searching for some hashtags, according Andy Stone, the head of communications for Meta, the parent company of the social media app. Stone responded on X to a Mashable article which is titled “Is Instagram blocking the #Democrat hashtag?