Instagram Clamps Down On Spam

It is being referred to as the Instagram “purge”, many Instagram users are losing big amounts of followers as the service seeks to clear up the spam and clear out inactive accounts.

As a result, Justin Bieber has been dethroned as the king of Instagram after he lost 3.5 million followers in less than 24 hours, according to a list compiled by 64px. He had 23.8 million followers however after the purge had ended, he had been reduced to 20.3 million followers. Oh how sad.

The new ruler is Kim Kardashian who lost only 1.3 million followers and now has a total of 22.2 million followers. Beyonce is in the number 2 spot and Akon seems to have taken the biggest hit as he lost 50% of his followers and dropped from 4.3 million to 1.9 million.

However the “celeb” to take it the hardest was rapper, Ma$e who deleted his account when he lost 1.5 million followers and dropped to a mere 100,000 followers.

Instagram had the following statement to give to the Guardian.

After receiving feedback from members in the Instagram community, we recently fixed an issue that incorrectly included inactive accounts in follower/following lists. We believe this will provide a more authentic experience and genuinely reflect people who are actually engaging with each other’s content.

And just like that, Instagram spambots are no more, so there is a good chance that by the time I go to check my profile, I will be back down to a mere 4 or 5 followers.

About The Author

Mark is the founder of 60 Second Social media where he provides social media news and digital marketing analysis, he is also a proud father of his bearded dragon, Lola. You can follow him on Twitter here. You can also follow 60 Second Social on Twitter here.