Certain celebrities lost millions of followers in the past 24 hours.
A number of well-known influencers on Instagram are confused as to why they lost a substantial amount of followers on their social media account overnight.
This is because Instagram have deleted millions of accounts, which they believe to be inauthentic or “bots”.
A purge took place between Tuesday and Wednesday, which saw plenty of popular Instagram accounts lose thousands and even millions of followers.
Eagle-eyed Insta users noticed that Ariana Grande lost close to 3 million followers, while Selena Gomez lost almost 2 million.
In a blog post, the social media platform said that the process behind determining whether or not an account was inauthentic was relatively straightforwards:
“We’re taking a number of steps to limit this kind of unwelcome behaviour. Accounts we identify will receive an in-app message alerting them that we’ve removed the inauthentic activity given to their account from others. We will also ask them to secure their account by changing their password. Accounts that use these types of apps share their username and password, which is sometimes used to give inauthentic likes, follows and comments to others.”
Make-up artist James Charles is one of many people who has taken to Twitter since the purge to voice their confusion:
why did I just lose over half a million followers @instagram wyd sis
— James Charles (@jamescharles) February 13, 2019
Oh yes the purge of IG followers was real for everyone today
— Aja 〽️iyake-〽️ugler Sanchez (@ajaoxum) February 13, 2019
https://twitter.com/Leppard/status/1095627967072485376
Nothing like losing 1000 followers on @instagram overnight!! Cheers Instagram….a whole months work DOWN THE PAN 😫🙄 #instagram #followers #clearout pic.twitter.com/OpwB3KdNhT
— E. H (@emilyhartridge) February 13, 2019
https://twitter.com/InkedUpSHAQ/status/1095614536411947008
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