Instagram to Kick Out Fake Followers Making Accounts Look Popular

On November 19, Instagram announced that it was kicking out fake followers, likes, and comments generated from third-party applications making accounts look popular than they actually are.

The move comes barely days after the parent company, Facebook announced that it was launching an independent body to combat policy-violating posts to ensure credibility and trustworthiness of the social platform.

“Recently, we’ve seen accounts use third-party apps to artificially grow their audience,” stated Instagram in a post.

The platform announced that starting November 19, they would be getting rid of inauthentic likes, follows and comments from accounts that use third-party apps to boost their popularity.

The platform is utilizing self-improving software programs to help recognize user accounts that exploit such apps for fame and oust products of inauthentic activity that violate the terms of service of Instagram.

According to Instagram, where the comments, fake followers, and likes are removed, users will be notified.

Instagram noted that those who have unknowingly connected their accounts to such applications should change their passwords to delink the connections.

However, according to the photo and video sharing platform, users who will continue using the third-party apps will possibly see their “experience impacted.” Instagram didn’t specify how this would happen.

The move will see a significant reduction in the number of a user’s followers as was the case with Twitter, which made the same efforts to root out fake accounts that saw many users lose thousands of followers.

Meanwhile, Facebook, following a New York Times investigation faces renewed criticism claiming that the site played deaf to warnings about Russian influence campaigns on the platform and hired a consulting firm to discredit critics