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Doha, Qatar: Instagram carried out a cleanup of bots and inactive accounts that resulted in a noticeable drop in follower counts for several accounts across the platform.
Though a routine exercise, the impact was huge and visible across different types of account handles, including those of celebrities, artists and influencers.
Media reports quoted a Meta spokesperson confirming that this is part of a routine process to remove inactive accounts. "Active followers remain unaffected, and any restored suspended account will be included in the count again after verification," the spokesperson said, further apologising for the inconvenience.
The numbers were staggering for some of the most-followed accounts. Kylie Jenner reportedly shed over 15 million followers, while Taylor Swift and Cristiano Ronaldo around 8 million and 6 million, respectively.
The drop in numbers was widely discussed across social media platforms, with some calling it the "Great Instagram Purge of 2026".
