After purging millions of fake Instagram accounts this week, this housekeeping move by the social network resulted in angering all the users that define their self worth by a follower count. Angry Instragram users have flocked to Twitter to voice their disappointment over losing hundreds, thousands or even millions of fake followers.
Instragram addressed this change recently stating “We’re in the process of fixing an issue that incorrectly includes inactive or fake accounts in follower/following lists. We want to maintain the best possible experience on Instagram, so we do our best to remove spam, fake accounts and other people and posts that don’t follow our Community Guidelines. As we remove these accounts, some people may notice a decrease in their follower/following counts.” Instagram also indicated that this purge started happening during April 2014 and should be complete by the end of the year.
Interestingly, this purge knocked Justin Bieber out of the number one spot celebrity spot on the social network. According to Web developer Zach Allia, Bieber lost nearly 15 percent of his followers (3.5 million accounts) after the purge.
