Instagram, the photo-sharing app recently came heavy on spam accounts so if you found out you have fewer followers than you once had, i can tell you they are gone for good.
Instagram routinely wipes out spam accounts in a bid to prevent people especially celebrities from buying followers, recently it has wiped out millions of accounts from its network. This act has been dubbed “Instagram Rapture” and has been criticized by people who lost lots of followers. Rapper Ma$e, lost more than a million followers and has since deleted his account after he was accused of paying for more followers.
The most affected from this action are the top celebrities who have loads of followers, mostly spam accounts. Instagram made this known about a week ago but users never thought it would come this heavy.
…As more people join, keeping Instagram authentic is critical—it’s a place where real people share real moments. We’re committed to doing everything possible to keep Instagram free from the fake and spammy accounts that plague much of the web, and that’s why we’re finishing up some important work that began earlier this year.
We’ve been deactivating spammy accounts from Instagram on an ongoing basis to improve your experience. As part of this effort, we will be deleting these accounts forever, so they will no longer be included in follower counts. This means that some of you will see a change in your follower count.
Most of you won’t see any impact. If you’re one of those who will see a correction, you will receive a notification in the app directing you to additional information.
According to reports, popular rapper Akon reportedly lost 56% of his followers . Other big celebrities like Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, Beyonce, and Kim Kardashian were also affect by Instagram’s hunting of spam accounts. They lost 5.7%, 7%, 3.7%, and 5.5% of their follower base, respectively.
The worst hit among the celebrities was Justin Beiber who obviously had the most fake followers, he lost over 3.5 million of his followers which amounts to about 15 percent drop.
The official Instagram account itself lost over 18 million followers overnight.
You can click here to check details of the account deleted as collected at 64px.com