Why did Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi lose millions of Instagram followers overnight?

Meta decided to remove millions of bots, fake and inactive profiles from Instagram and some of the most-followed personalities like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi ended up losing millions of followers.

The massive decrease in Instagram follower count all of a sudden led to confusion with many thinking the legends fell prey to some mass unfollowing campaign on the platform.

Instagram removes fake and inactive accounts, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi lose millions of followers

Instagram users were confused after they noticed football legends Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo losing millions of followers all of a sudden. However, their worries have quelled after it was reported that Meta took on bot-purge drive to remove inactive and fake followers in a large scale.

According to available reports, Ronaldo, the most followed person on Instagram, saw a drop of around 8 million followers and Messi lost approximately 5 million followers.

Other celebrities like Virat Kohli, Kylie Jenner, Justin Bieber and even the Pope, were affected by the operation undertaken by Instagram to keep the platform real. Indian cricketing legend, Virat lost around two million followers. Kylie was among the most-affected celebrities, losing around 15 million followers overnight.

Meta took on the large scale operation to delete spam and bot accounts that have infested the platform. Celebrities with massive following were affected most because such high-profile accounts are the ones that attract fake accounts.

Despite the clean-up, Ronaldo continues to be the most-followed person on Instagram. His follower count has dropped to 666 million from 673 million. Messi now has 507 million followers from the previous 512 million.

Many believe that with bot accounts out of the way, engagement and reach would be more authentic, helping celebrities and brands to whom, Instagram partnerships and sponsorships are extremely important.

While the tidy up process was aggressive, it is important to maintain authenticity on a platform that has become such an integral part of our daily lives. In spite of the global debate and conversation around the matter, Instagram have not made an official comment following the clean-up.

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