Millions of followers, from Ronaldo, Messi, Kohli, Swift to Modi, have lost their followers after Meta launched a campaign to remove fake accounts.
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This week, various celebrities and influencers around the world suddenly saw their Instagram followers drop. Initially, it was thought to be a technical glitch with Meta. However, according to international media reports, the celebrity followers have dropped after millions of accounts were removed during a campaign to clean up fake accounts, or 'bot purge'.
The purge has had the biggest impact on American model Kylie Jenner. She has lost nearly 15 million followers, while her own official Instagram account has lost nearly 9 million followers.
The most followed soccer player on Instagram, Cristiano Ronaldo, has lost nearly 8 million followers. Another famous soccer player, Lionel Messi, has lost 5 million followers. Similarly, the followers of the famous Korean music band ‘Black Pink’ have decreased by 10 million. Singer Selena Gomez has lost 6 million, Ariana Grande has lost 6 million, Justin Bieber has lost 5 million, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Drake, BTS, Kim Kardashian and other celebrities have also lost tens of millions of followers.
The followers of Virat Kohli, the most followed cricketer in India, have decreased by nearly 2 million after Meta’s latest campaign, and the followers of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and actress Priyanka Chopra have also decreased significantly, according to Indian media reports.
In March this year, Meta announced the launch of new technology to remove fake, fake and bot accounts on its platforms. Meta, which has been criticized worldwide and has been sued and fined in various places for allowing children or underage users to use its platform without restrictions, had mentioned that it would use artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce such users.
A Meta spokesperson has admitted that the number of followers has decreased during the campaign to remove inactive users. “Active users have not been significantly affected, and if any account is verified and claims are made, it will be restored and allowed to operate as before,” he said.
There is no official data on how many followers Nepal’s Instagram influencers and celebrities have lost. However, given the global trend, there is talk on social media that many may have lost thousands of followers.
Meta has not yet officially disclosed how many fake accounts it has removed, and this is not the first time such a purge has taken place. The company announced last year that it had removed nearly 10 million accounts from Facebook and Instagram. Some updates on Reddit mention that influencers, both large and small, around the world have lost between 2 and 5 percent of their followers as a result of this year's purge.
