Instagram users woke up today to discover that many had lost followers overnight. In most cases, the number of followers an Instagram user lost was just a handful to several hundred, according to reports on Twitter. However, major Instagram personalities like Selena Gomez lost almost 2 million and Ariana Grande lost almost 3 million. Needless to say, people were NOT HAPPY and wanted an explanation to why their social media street cred just went down.
Not happy. Lost over 40 followers on instagram overnight. Either a lot of people hate me because of something I did in their dream or instagram have a SERIOUS issue.
— Amy Hamerslagh (@AmyHamerslagh) February 13, 2019
https://twitter.com/moniquexmusic/status/1095554357259431937
https://twitter.com/Tanika_Terry_/status/1095617302987337728
Earlier today I had 1,159 Instagram followers but now I have 1,116. @instagram you better freaking be glitching and you’d better fix this glitch soon or I will NOT be happy 😡
— Kimber (@kimbearlea) February 13, 2019
Nothing like losing 1000 followers on @instagram overnight!! Cheers Instagram….a whole months work DOWN THE PAN 😫🙄 #instagram #followers #clearout pic.twitter.com/OpwB3KdNhT
— E. H (@emilyhartridge) February 13, 2019
So what happened? Instagram has now tweeted that the follower loss was not the result of a fake user account culling, but instead due to a glitch they are still looking in to. We’ve individually confirmed this with Instagram representatives as well. The good news is that those who lost followers should see them return sometime in the future. How soon that happens depends on how quickly Instagram can track down and fix the glitch.
We’re aware of an issue that is causing a change in account follower numbers for some people right now. We’re working to resolve this as quickly as possible.
— Instagram (@instagram) February 13, 2019
[Correction: This post has been updated to correct the original report that said the loss of followers was a result of a culling of fake profiles.]