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Many Instagram users woke up to a noticeable drop in their follower counts, with losses ranging from a handful to several thousand in some cases.
Baffled, they took to X/Twitter to work out whether it was a technical glitch or an intentional change by Meta. Instead, they quickly discovered they weren't alone, with thousands of others reporting the same sudden dip and asking the same question.
"I lost 300 followers right after getting to 11K," one person shared, as another wrote: "My page is private and I rarely ever accepted people I hadn’t at least interacted with once in real life and tell me why I lost 21 followers."
A third joked: "I deadass lost like 30 followers overnight, I thought I accidentally posted something bad."
Meanwhile, another person lost over 1,000 followers, sharing: "Lost 1.5K followers, wanted to complain then I came here to confirm it wasn’t only me."
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So what actually happened?
It turns out the Instagram purge wasn't a glitch, with Meta issuing a statement to concerned users. The Instagram follower drop is a "routine process" to remove inactive accounts from the platform.
"As part of our routine process to remove inactive accounts, some Instagram accounts may have noticed updates to their follower counts. Active followers remain unaffected, and any restored suspended account will be included in the count again after verification," they shared.
"Thank you for your patience and we apologize for any inconvenience."
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