Kylie JennerCristiano Ronaldo, Virat Kohli, Priyanka Chopra and other celebs lose millions of followers as Instagram cracks down on botsFans and celebrities woke up to a huge stir on their social media handles after Instagram deleted millions of fake and other bot accounts from their follower lists.The “Great Purge of 2026” started trending on social media after social media noticed that several celebrities had lost millions of followers overnight. The sudden drop is believed to be part of parent company Meta Platforms’ recent spate of spam accounts and artificially inflated followers. Although Meta has yet to issue an official statement, reports from various news portals suggest that the platform is aggressively removing inactive and “inorganic” accounts, including those linked to third-party follower services.Several high-profile figures were among the worst affected. Kylie Jenner lost more than 14 million followers in a matter of hours, while Cristiano Ronaldo saw a drop of almost 8 million. Selena Gomez has also reportedly lost around 6 million followers. There are other important figures who were affected Ariana GrandeBeyonce, Taylor SwiftJustin Bieber, Virat Kohli, Priyanka Chopra and many moreThis update follows Instagram’s recent policy changes. Fans of K-Pop groups like BTS and BLACKPINK have also noticed that the groups have lost several followers in recent hours.At the same time, Threads users have reported unexpected bans and unexplained account restrictions. While several celebrities have lost their followers significantly, some social media influencers and content creators have also reported losing a large chunk of their followers. Some even claim that legal matters were misdirected during the repression.According to online reports, millions of accounts were reportedly deleted in a six-hour window, with small creators losing between 2% and 5% of their followers. Celebrity accounts seem to have seen the biggest declines, with some losing a million and others surpassing the 10 million mark due to the high volume of bot accounts attached to their profiles.
