Here's The Reason Everyone Is Losing Tons Of Followers On Instagram

Let's face it, we've all worked hard to get our Instagram accounts to where they are. We post photos and videos our followers will enjoy, we connect with new and old friends and most importantly, we're usually proud of the follower count we've gained. There's no doubt that Instagram is the most important social media app right now, which is why the entire world is outraged at the brand new changes.
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TL;DR Overnight the Instagram users across the world have lost hundreds, thousands and even millions of followers due to what was suspected to be a purge by the social media app itself to remove bot accounts. According to Instagram, however, this is due to a bug. Below is a compilation of tweets on the event.
Without any announcement or heads-up, thousands of Insta-users logged into their account yesterday to discover a significantly smaller number of followers than before.
Seriously, we're talking hundreds, thousands and even millions of followers GONE suddenly. So you're probably wondering where did all of these followers go? With Instagram's only comment on the problem being a quick tweet, people are starting to become extremely impatient.
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.
Thankfully, there is a pretty simple explanation as to why your followers have disappeared. While some suspected the sudden purge on accounts had to do with Instagram wanting to eliminate bots from the platform, the social media giant says it was simply due to a bug that it aims to fix.
The number of followers people have been losing is pretty big for it all to just be bot accounts. A few dozen? Sure. But now we're seeing accounts lose over half a million followers. With people also seeing different follower counts pop up depending on if you're using the website or app, the whole situation is quite suspect.
In the meantime, take a look at how hard this sudden change is hitting the Instagram community:
am i the only one instagram took followers from ?
I just lost 500 followers on insta, what’s going on sis? @instagram
tell me why instagram just deleted almost 100 of my followers ?? @instagram is it just inactive accounts or are you deleting people that ACTUALLY follow me ??
Instagram is quietly getting rid of everyone’s fake followers and it shows 🌚
Every time I refresh Instagram I get a new number of followers with at least 200 difference each time, what is going on 🙃
I lost 800 followers randomly in like 6 hours? I thought I was going crazy. Y’all better fix this 💀
Instagram purged bot/"fake" followers today, and the only thing I have to say is that I thought I was better at catching those accounts myself. I had about 20 or so following me.
It turns out that not even celebrities are safe from the mysterious loss of followers...
ariana lost 3M followers. like wtf is happening!? sksksks
Little mix lost about 1 million followers on Instagram last night
This Instagram "glitch" seems to have affected a lot of accounts - It will be interesting to find out whether this is connected to removing fake/inactive accounts: https://t.co/wljIcsk9VF
why did I just lose over half a million followers @instagram wyd sis
📷 February 12: Over 2 million followers have disappeared from Selena Gomez’s Instagram account. An hour ago it was 145 million+. pic.twitter.com/q9Pcdz0Akx
What is going on with Instagram? People are saying I have 3.6 million followers, and some are saying 3.8... And I’m loosing followers. WHAT IS GOING ON
Needless to say, everyone is just extremely confused right now.
did anyone just lose like an insane amount of followers on instagram? i was at 20.6k and now i’m at 19.7k and im MAD 🥵 they probably just deleted fake accounts but
Girl my followers on instagram just disappear like I do on exam week pic.twitter.com/BaQ2sQOFYr
Me running to twitter to see who else lost a lot of followers on Instagram 🤦🏾♀️ pic.twitter.com/hCLMdyG7Hf
The BIG Instagram Account Purge - Feb 2019
Instagram removed a LOT of fake accounts in the past 24 hours.
Here's a running list of popular accounts who lost followers (updating across the day)
📝 https://t.co/RDSS0rHbxJpic.twitter.com/18zTbAwMlv
We can only hope that Instagram will release another statement (with more details) later today.