Worth noting that the follow option on your account likely isn’t accurate. That’s a large part of the complaints; I didn’t follow the potus or vp accounts when looking at it on my own page, but my friend saw that I was following them via the “followed by [friend’s name] and [#] other friends” option. Like when you tap that, it allows you to see which of your mutual friends follow the account. And I showed up on that list. On my own account page, it didn’t show that I was following them. The button said “Follow” so I couldn’t unfollow them.

Here is the vp page from my perspective. Notice that I’m not following it, and therefore can’t unfollow it:

Now here’s my friend’s “your mutual friends follow this account” list, which shows me as a follower:

I had to restrict the vp account, which then updated the “Follow” button into an “unfollow” button. But the fact that I had to restrict the account before I was allowed to unfollow it (because I was being forced to shadow-follow the account) is what people have issues with.