Channel Nine star makes wild claim that US Vice President JD Vance has forced Aussie celebrities to follow him on social media ‘against our will’

A former Channel Nine star has claimed US Vice President JD Vance has forced a number of Instagram users, including Australian celebrities, to follow his account ‘against their will’.

Former Today show entertainment reporter Brooke Boney, 37, took to Instagram on Thursday after waking up to find she had been following the Vice President’s new account without ever pressing the ‘follow’ button.

‘Lol wot? Apparently we all followed JD Vance overnight against our will?’ she said on her Story alongside a screenshot of Vance’s account page.

The newsreader compared it to the 2014 iTunes blunder in which the U2 album, ‘Songs Of Innocence,’ automatically downloaded to more than 500 million users’ accounts, sparking mass outrage.

Brooke is not the only notable Aussie celebrity to fall victim to find herself following the newly-created account, with others including Abbie Chatfield, Jennifer Hawkins, Miranda Kerr, Tones and I, Jasmine Stefanovic, Simone Holtznagel and Jess Rowe.

Other television presenters following the Vice President – willingly or not – include Channel Seven’s Sam Mac, Kylie Gillies, Edwina Bartholomew, Natalie Barr, Kate Waterhouse and Nine’s Tracy Grimshaw, Belinda Russell and Silvia Jeffreys.

‘Lol wot? Apparently we all followed JD Vance overnight against out will?’ she vented on her Story alongside a screenshot of Vance’s account page

Instagram and Facebook users have claimed their accounts have automatically followed Donald Trump, JD Vance, and Melania Trump since this week’s inauguration.

Across social media, users have complained that Meta is ‘forcing’ them to follow the new US President.

On X (formerly Twitter), one furious commenter wrote: ‘Really Meta y’all forcing people to follow Trump and JD Vance in Instagram??’

Fears of interference grew after users reported that Meta-owned Instagram appeared to be blocking searches for ‘#Democrat’ while ‘#Republican’ returned millions of results.

Searching for ‘Democrat’ or for Democratic political figures like Bernie Sanders brought up a message stating: ‘We’ve hidden these results. Results for the term you’ve searched may contain sensitive content.’

She later compared it to the 2014 iTunes blunder in which the U2 album, ‘Songs Of Innocence,’ automatically downloading to more than 500 million users’ accounts, sparking mass outrage

Brooke isn’t the only notable Aussie star to fall victim to the mass following of US federal leaders, with others including Abbie Chatfield, Jennifer Hawkins, Miranda Kerr and Tones and I all following the newly-created account

The concerns over political manipulation of social media feeds began in the US soon after Trump’s return to the Oval Office on Monday.

It appeared to many that Meta had forced them to follow some politicians’ accounts without the user having a choice.

Another added: ‘Hey, if you have an Instagram account, go and check to see if you are following these two Vance and Trump accounts. Somehow they are making you follow them without you actually hitting that follow button.’

Likewise, in a post on X, Democratic Congressman Eric Sorensen wrote: ‘This morning, @facebook starting serving me all kinds of right wing stuff in my feed.

‘When I went to manage content preferences, I see they automatically made me follow Trump yesterday. Am I the only one?’

Despite the conspiracy claims, there’s a simple explanation for the change. 

The accounts users were unwillingly following were not the personal accounts of Trump, Vance, and Melania, but the official President, Vice President, and First Lady accounts.

Democratic Congressman Eric Sorensen said that he was seeing ‘all kinds of right wing stuff’ on Facebook after being made to follow Trump 

These accounts are controlled by the White House and are passed onto the new President and his team after an election.

That means anyone who had been following the official Joe Biden POTUS (President of the United States) account would now automatically be following the Donald Trump POTUS account.

Looking at the account data for these accounts shows that they are clearly identified as ‘potus’, ‘vp’, and ‘flotus’.

Likewise, all three accounts are listed as being created in January 2025 while Trump and Vance’s personal accounts date back to 2013 and 2021 respectively.

The same is true of the Facebook accounts associated with Donald Trump, JD Vance, and Melania Trump.

In a post on Threads, Meta’s communications director Andy Stone explained: ‘The Facebook.com/POTUS and Facebook.com/WhiteHouse accounts are managed by the White House and they change when the occupant of the White House changes.’

Users also reported finding that certain search terms associated with left-wing politics appeared to be blocked by Instagram following the inauguration.

However, Meta communications director Andy Stone says that these accounts are the official President, Vice President, and First Lady accounts which are controlled by the White House and handed over to the the new incumbent after an election 

When Trump became president he was given the official potus (President of the United States) Instagram account (left), which is distinct from his personal account (right)

Looking at JD Vance’s accounts there is a clear difference between his personal account (right) and the account people complained about following (left) 

Searches for terms including ‘#voteblue’, ‘#obama’, ‘#biden’, and ‘#democrats’ yielded no results throughout Monday and Tuesday.

Meanwhile, some users pointed out that right-wing-associated terms such as ‘#republican’ were still showing search results.

While the left-wing terms are searchable again, the temporary restriction sparked furious accusations of political bias.

On X, one Instagram user wrote: ‘Instagram is currently hiding content for #democrat while #republican is unscathed. I’m curious how the new content policy is doing!’.

Meta maintains that this was not the product of political bias but rather an unspecified technical issue.

Mr Stone said in a post on Threads: ‘There’s an issue affecting people’s ability to search for a number of different hashtags on Instagram – not just those on the left. We’re working quickly to resolve this.’

A Meta spokesperson confirmed that both ‘#conservative’ and ‘#republicans’ were also blocked – although they did not provide an explanation why. 

Meta told the Mail it was investigating how the hashtag error or bug happened in the first place.

A large number of Instagram users also complained that search terms related to left-wing political topics were being blocked 

Meta says that this is due to an unspecified technical issue which has affected both left-wing and right-wing hashtags 

The accusations of political bias come at a sensitive time for Meta as CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg publicly pivots towards supporting Trump. Mr Zuckerberg donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund and was a guest at the new president’s inauguration earlier this week (pictured) 

Earlier this month, Instagram made a similar mistake when the hashtag for Meghan Markle’s new Netflix show was accidentally blocked.

The social media site refused to show search results for ‘#WithLoveMeghan’ and warned that it could be linked to child sexual abuse.

Instead of photos and videos related to the upcoming show, people were given a message that links them to resources about helping victims of abuse.

‘We think that your search might be associated with child sexual abuse,’ the message read.

A Meta spokesperson said that the ‘search term was restricted by mistake and has now been fixed.’

These accusations of bias come at a particularly sensitive time for Meta as founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a pronounced shift towards support for Trump’s position of ending government censorship of social media.

While Zuckerberg had previously championed a system of human and automated fact-checkers, he recently announced that this would be replaced with an X-style community notes system.

The ‘fact-checkers’ had been heavily criticised by Trump and his allies and accused of being political operatives that disproportionately targeted right-wing content.

In response to pressure from Trump and his allies, Mr Zuckerberg has announced the end of fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram. In a video, Mr Zuckerberg repeated Trump’s claim that the fact-checkers had been ‘too politically biased’

Facebook’s decision to ban stories on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal – at the behest of security agencies – was cited by the right as a key factor in Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.

Mr Zuckerberg had since conceded many of the requests of government to censor ‘misinformation’ were politically motivated, and Meta would think twice before agreeing to it again.

‘Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more,’ Mr Zuckerberg said.

‘The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritising speech. So we’re going to get back to our roots and focusing on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms.’

Mr Zuckerberg added that the fact-checkers on his platform had been ‘too politically biased’.

Likewise, Meta has updated its harmful content policies on topics like gender and immigration as well as specifically allowing posts which call homosexuality a mental illness.

Mr Zuckerberg also donated US$1 million (AU$1.6million) to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund and was a prominent guest at the new president’s inauguration earlier this week.