Instagram has reportedly announced that it is investigating the glitch which is causing some of its most popular accounts to lose millions of followers. As per trusted sources, several popular YouTube creators have experienced big drops in their follower counts apart from mainstream celebrities.
Reportedly, Instagram stated on Twitter that it is aware of a bug that is currently causing a change in account follower numbers for some users as of now. The firm further noted that it is working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
The glitch has reduced the follower counts of numerous popular accounts on the site. For instance, Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian lost 1.7 million and 1.9 million followers respectively. Moreover, Selena Gomez and Kylie Jenner also witnessed massive drops of more than 2 million followers each. It is being reported that Ariana Grande's account experienced a drop from 145 million followers to 143 million.
Reportedly, it is being said that Instagram might have acted to remove millions of accounts which it believed to be inauthentic. Numerous firms, including Instagram, undertake sporadic sweeps of their user bases to delete inactive or spam accounts. Moreover, the firm had declared in November last year that it was planning to decrease the number of inauthentic accounts on the platform.
A blog post released by Instagram in November stated that it would start removing inauthentic comments, follows, and likes from accounts which utilize third-party apps to increase their popularity. The company has developed machine learning tools to detect accounts that utilize such services and remove the inauthentic activity, the blog post further noted.
Popular YouTube creators, including Zach Clayton and James Charles, who each have millions of Instagram followers, started tweeting regarding the issue on Wednesday night. According to a report by Mashable, some Instagrammers have claimed that their accounts have been updated with the lost followers being returned to their overall follower count.