Starting Wednesday, Meta says he will begin to combine accounts on Instagram of the second lady of the United States, Usha Vance and former United States Second, Doug Emhoff.
As a result, the 1.2 million people who were previously following the Instagram account of Kamala Harris’s husband, @SecondGentleman46Archive (recently archived by the government) will now follow JD Vance’s wife on her newly created account, @slotus. As of writing, its account has less than 66,000 followers.
“After the White House creating an account for the second lady, we are crossing the second account of the gentlemen at @slotus,” said a Meta spokesman in a statement to Techcrunch. “This is in line with our process for the presidential transitions and the process we have followed for the President, VP, Flotus and the White House accounts earlier this year.”
When Trump took office in January, many users were confused why they were suddenly chasing President Trump on Facebook and Instagram when they had not clearly sought to do so. At the time, Meta explained that this was part of a regular process in which the White House social media accounts, including their followers, surrendered to the new administration when a new president assumes.
Usha Vance is receiving followers of the former second to Instagram now because the White House only recently created her @slotus account, according to Meta. The first post on the second lady’s Instagram account is March 10, and Meta says she does not have an official Facebook account at this time.
Be aware that if you try to unlock @slotus on Instagram, your request may not pass immediately.
Meta says it may “take some time” to process tracking requirements and moved around the @slotus account during this transition. It seems likely that users flood meta with a number of followed and unclear requirements in these account transitions, which slows down things.
Meta insists he never obliges the user to “automatically follow” account without a user’s consent. In this case, Meta says the White House itself controls these official accounts, and is simply helping them in the presidential transition.
While these White House social media accounts change their hands every four years, they tend to create widespread confusion every time. Many users forget that they sometimes followed an official White House account in the first place, especially if they had done so four years ago when the previous administration took office.
However, it becomes much clearer about which White House accounts you are following when the new administration, which may not be the party you have voted for, takes over.
