Millions of Instagram Followers Disappear as Meta Removes Fake Accounts

The number of followers for many celebrities and high-profile Instagram accounts has dropped sharply over the past two days. According to reports, the Instagram account of Cristiano Ronaldo lost more than six million followers, while the accounts of Lionel Messi and Selena Gomez also saw declines of several million followers. At the same time, the official Instagram account reportedly lost around 11 million followers. Popular Iranian pages have also experienced declines ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of followers. The changes came after Meta, Instagram’s parent company, introduced a new artificial intelligence-based age detection system designed to identify underage users. Meta also appears to have launched a broad crackdown on fake accounts, bots and inactive profiles amid increasing regulatory pressure in Europe and several other countries.