Overview
- Instagram’s bot cleanup surfaced Thursday with sharp drops across major accounts after it used automated tools to remove inactive and fake profiles.
- Cristiano Ronaldo lost roughly 7–8 million followers to about 666 million, while Lionel Messi fell by about 5 million to roughly 507 million.
- Other top names were hit too, with Kylie Jenner down about 14 million, Selena Gomez down 6 million, and Virat Kohli down nearly 2 million to 274 million.
- Meta said the removals are a routine integrity measure designed to keep follower counts tied to real people and to give partners cleaner performance data.
- Analysts expect limited effect on earnings because sponsors place more weight on real reach and engagement than on inflated follower totals.