Instagram stages purge of millions of spam and fake accounts

The housecleaning on Instagram was so widespread, it affected celebrity follower rankings, with Justin Bieber being knocked from the number 1 spot, by losing 15% of his followers, about 3.5 million total. Now, Kim Kardashian, who herself saw 5% of her followers disappear sits atop the social network.

The millions of accounts that are being removed are part of wider initiative to fix what Instagram calls an “ongoing issue” that affects follower lists. Spam, inactive, and fake accounts are at the top of the list.

For those that treasure their following though, some were concerned about engagement to which Instagram assures that legitimate accounts will still be able to see and like posts. Given the push broom housecleaning going on, we wonder if the remaining active account standing would have any impact on analysts that see Instagram as being larger than Twitter.

If you see your follower account drop, do not be alarmed, chances are it is not as bad for you as it was for Jersey Shore’s JWoww, who saw 2.5 million followers fall off the count, leaving her with “only” 115,000 followers. Rapper Ma$e lost so many Instagram followers that he actually deleted his account entirely due to people on Twitter (ironically) poking fun at him over a huge “fake” following.

source: Digital Trends