Instagram glitch caused major drop in follower count

An Instagram glitch led to a drop in follower count for users globally. Instagram said it is working on a fix.

Instagram users will soon get their lost followers back. (Shutterstock)

Instagram users recently noticed a drastic drop in their follower count. This was understood to be Instagram's move of removing unauthentic accounts. It appears the sudden drop in follower count was actually due to an Instagram glitch.

Last November, Instagram announced it would start removing inauthentic likes, follows and comments from accounts that use third-party apps to generate popularity on the platform.

"We've built machine learning tools to help identify accounts that use these services and remove the inauthentic activity. Accounts we identify using these services will receive an in-app message alerting them that we have removed the inauthentic likes, follows and comments given by their account to others," Instagram said in its blog post.

The drop in follower count was experienced by users globally. Some users reported losing as many as 50k followers, while some lost around 20-30 followers. This was followed by Instagram users acknowledging the fact that Instagram is purging fake accounts from their pages. This supposed purge was affecting non-influencers and celebrities as well. .

 

If your followers on Instagram went down it's because their new update is deleting fake and inactive accounts. It's cleaning up your shit. 🥴

— Rachel✨🕊 (@lizabethrachell) February 13, 2019

 

Umm is Instagram doing a clean up of fake accounts or something cos I'm pretty sure I just lost like 10k followers? Just curious...

— Adela-Mae Marshall (@adelamae_) February 13, 2019

 

Hey I'm not a blogger, youtuber and all but I just lost 60 followers on instagram Oo.. And I'm sure they were not fake accounts.

— Evada (@Evada16494817) February 13, 2019

 

Instagram did a purge on fake accounts and I lost around 100+ followers I think. Which is good because I don't want fake followers.

— 𝗔𝘆𝘀𝗵𝗮 𝗥𝗶𝗱𝘇𝘂𝗮𝗻 (@ayshardzn) February 13, 2019

Instagram later tweeted that the drop in follower count is actually due to a bug. The photo-sharing app said it is working on a fix for the Instagram glitch which should be solved by 10:30 pm IST.

 

We're aware of an issue that is causing a change in account follower numbers for some people right now. We're working to resolve this as quickly as possible.

— Instagram (@instagram) February 13, 2019

Some Instagram users have started getting back their lost followers after the announcement. Instagram's incident is similar to a Twitter bug which caused drops in likes and retweets for many users. Some Twitter users faced issues with notifications as well. Twitter is also working on a fix for the bug.