If you’re one of the 1.2 million people who followed Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff on Instagram, you might notice that you’re now following Second Lady Usha Vance. No need to worry — it wasn’t some odd glitch or a political conspiracy, it’s just how Instagram works.
As of Wednesday, Meta began combining the two Instagram accounts. So if you followed Kamala Harris’s husband at @secondgentleman46archive, you’ll now be following JD Vance’s wife at @SLOTUS. Emhoff’s account was archived by the government, so you’ll only see six photos on the account now, and they’re all courtesy of Usha Vance.
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“Following the White House creating an account for the Second Lady, we are transitioning the Second Gentleman account to @SLOTUS,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to TechCrunch. “This is consistent with our process for presidential transitions and with the process we followed for the President, VP, FLOTUS, and the White House accounts earlier this year.”
This isn’t the first time a controversy over political follower counts has erupted as a result of Meta’s routine operations. Each time a new politician is elected to office, the official social media accounts for the White House are transferred to the new administration. In January, this meant that if you were following President Joe Biden, you’d then be following President Donald Trump — and the same goes for Vice President JD Vance and First Lady Melania Trump. Now, that’s going into effect for the Second Lady.
