Internet celebrities woke up to a major shake-up in their Instagram follower counts. Some of these personalities, including Indian cricket legend Virat Kohli to football icon Cristiano Ronaldo, billionaires Kylie Jenner, and singer Taylor Swift have lost millions of followers overnight.
The routine cleanup wiped out millions of bot accounts from the app, thus reflecting a major dip in followers. As per an official statement from a Meta spokesperson, the sudden disruption was part of a ‘routine process’.
According to multiple reports, Instagram’s parent company Meta has reportedly started removing fake followers, spam accounts, inactive profiles, and bot accounts from the platform. Though Meta has not officially confirmed the exact details, users noticed massive drops in follower counts almost overnight.
The purge has once again started discussions about fake followers and paid engagement on social media. While there is no proof that every celebrity intentionally bought followers, experts say highly followed accounts naturally attract large numbers of fake and inactive profiles over time.
Some online reports also claim accounts connected to follower boosting apps and paid engagement services were specifically targeted during the cleanup.
Many users first believed Instagram had a glitch. Others thought celebrities were being mass unfollowed by fans. Soon, hashtags related to the “Great Purge of 2026” started trending across social media platforms.
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