The Instagram purge is real! It’s been a long time since Instagram checked their userbase and cleaned up the garbage (fake accounts and bots). Perhaps, however, they took it too rashly.
At the moment, there have been numerous reports of accounts from influencers and giant brands to celebrities and regular individuals losing hundreds, thousands, and some even millions of followers in just one night.
Account purging has been a common practice for almost all social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even Snapchat. But it does not happen in a day. Platform cleanups usually take about a few weeks to a couple of months before removing chunks of users to make sure no authentic accounts are harmed in the process.
The most recent giant purges were from Facebook and Twitter during last year’s election. Although there were still a few people who reacted to it, it wasn’t as bad as what’s happening now on Instagram.
The Instagram Purge Issue
It’s not a surprise for Instagram to purge useless accounts that contribute nothing but spam. To be honest, it’s a good thing and should be done regularly.
However, the impact it provided this time seems a bit too much as almost every user in the platform experienced an incredible drop not just in terms of followers but also in engagement as well. And that translates to some of the accounts are probably authentic ones as they did participate in commenting and liking photos, and that’s why people like to find out about their instagram and the people that follow them and like them, using an instagram activity tracker which is really useful for these purposes.
It could also possibly be just a glitch as some users did mention they have different numbers on the app and on the browser. But still, it’s a problem Instagram must resolve.
Here are a few examples that will make you want to take this issue seriously:
Instagram you just lost 3 million followers on your own account!!! FIX THIS! Please
— Holly (@tchalamet_ny) February 13, 2019
Instagram started after several years to deleted accounts that don’t fulfill her rules from her system, Selena Gomez lost about 2 million followers pic.twitter.com/Kuwa2LoHfI
— Selena Gomez News (@_selenagomezecu) February 13, 2019
A friend as I were both kicked off your follower list but we refollowed. No clue what’s going on but definitely won’t be updating ig until the acknowledge and speak on what’s happening
— Rai (@halalbeautie) February 13, 2019
It’s not just in the US, it’s worldwide:
Instagram deleting many fake instagram ids.. Is that reason why ashi and Randeep followers decreased.. But it looks impossible 😶 ashi Ka 321 se 309k and Randeep 324 se 306k #YehUnDinonKiBaatHai pic.twitter.com/44AcwyUy3Z
— Piya21- panditji in samaina ki shadi 😂 (@Ashinaina1) February 13, 2019
There is a global issue with #Instagram. Many users have mentioned that they lost huge number of followers. It seems like it’s not an fake followers clean up but an Instagram technical issue.#instagramdown pic.twitter.com/OpGVKZaXtf
— Tigran Matinyan (@Tigran_Matinyan) February 13, 2019
And it’s not just the big stars, too:
well mine dropped almost 1000 followers 💁🏻♂️ okay that’s not too bad for some. but least at heads up would’ve been nice lol @instagram im waving @ u if ya’ll can’t fix this up just fix my dms!!!! it’s not working well either https://t.co/2z39Ep2JPN
— ken najera (@kennajeraa) February 13, 2019
And the big brands are no exception:
The BIG Instagram Account Purge – Feb 2019
Instagram removed a LOT of fake accounts in the past 24 hours.
Here’s a running list of popular accounts who lost followers (updating across the day)
📝 https://t.co/RDSS0rHbxJ pic.twitter.com/18zTbAwMlv
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) February 13, 2019
Instagram Response
That’s what we’ve been waiting for at the moment. There’s no official reply or reaction from Facebook or Instagram with regards to the massive purge. But no worries because when they do give the info, I’ll let you know ASAP.
Update according to Mirror.co.uk: Instagram has confirmed that there’s an ‘issue’ causing the changes, and that it is working quickly to fix this.