It’s not every day that a company publicly announces that they reached a new personal best only to say, “we cheated.”
Instagram recently announced its greatest achievement to date – 300 million users. Then, they said they would be deleting some of them…
In a recent blog post, Instagram wrote:
“…as more people join, keeping Instagram authentic is critical—it’s a place where real people share real moments. We’re committed to doing everything possible to keep Instagram free from the fake and spammy accounts that plague much of the web, and that’s why we’re finishing up some important work that began earlier this year.
We’ve been deactivating spammy accounts from Instagram on an ongoing basis to improve your experience. As part of this effort, we will be deleting these accounts forever, so they will no longer be included in follower counts. This means that some of you will see a change in your follower count.”
When Instagram says, “some of you will see a change in your follower count” they mean it too. Mase, a multi-platinum Hip-Hop artist, recently went from 1.5 million followers to just over 250K followers after some Inst-delete action.
I thinks it’s a little refreshing for a company of such size to blatantly name the 800 pound gorilla in the room. It’s no secret that spammers and accounts run by bots are the single biggest menace to Instagram.
Also, Kim Kardashian is now being reported as the most-followed individual on Instagram after more than 3.5 million spam accounts were Insta-erased from the follower count of Justin Bieber.
