From the 7th, users are seeing a sudden drop in the number of followers of many celebrities, influencers and major brands onr Instagram. At the origin of this phenomenon, a vast cleaning operation carried out by Meta, the parent company of the social network, aimed at delete inactive accounts, automated profiles et fake subscribers.
Cristiano Ronaldo is among the most affected personalities. The Portuguese star would have lost up to 20 millions d’abonnés after this purge. Despite this spectacular fall, he remains the most followed personality in the world on Instagram with around 664 million followers.
Other international celebrities have also seen their audiences decline sharply. Kylie Jenner would have lost more than 14 million subscribers, while SElena Gomez and Ariana Grande each reportedly recorded a drop of around 7 million followers. In the world of footballLionel Messi would have lost almost 8 millions d’abonnés et Kylian Mbappé environ 1 million.
The phenomenon does not only affect celebrities. The official Instagram account he himself would have lost almost 9 millions d’abonnés according to several publications relayed on X, formerly Twitter. The wave of deletions also affected international artists like the BTS group as well as several stars de Bollywood.
Faced with reactions from Internet users, Meta confirmed that it had carried out this operation as part of its usual process of deleting inactive accounts and profiles considered to be spam. The company claims that active subscribers are not affected and that the accounts suspended by mistake peuvent être réintégrés après vérification.
This purge is part of a broader strategy to clean up social platforms. According to the estimates put forward around this operation, between 10% and 15% of active accounts on Instagram are fake or automated. Meta also indicates having removed more than 500 million fake accounts in 2025 as part of its fight against spam and artificial interactions.
Beyond the impact on celebrities, this operation could also transform the influencer marketing market. For digital experts, brands now give less importance to the simple number of subscribers and more to the real quality of audiences.
Advertisers today are most interested in authentic interactions like comments, shares, views or real engagement rates, rather than numbers artificially inflated by bots or purchased subscribers.
Because behind this economy of followers hides a real parallel market. Several specialized platforms still offer the purchase of fake subscribers, likes or views for a few dozen dollars. Some services sell for example 10,000 subscribers between 50 and 100 dollarswith accounts often automated or completely inactive.
According to several analyzes published in 2026, nearly 37 % des abonnés of some of the biggest influencers in the world would show signs of inactivity or fraud. This phenomenon would cost up to 4.6 billion dollars per year to brands, through advertising campaigns based on artificially inflated audiences.
Instagram is not the only platform to intensify this type of operation. X also launched its own campaign against bots last April in order to limit spam and artificial interactions on its network.
