Users of Instagram and other social platforms claim that several famous personalities have lost hundreds of thousands to millions of followers in a short period of time. TASR writes about it according to the American television CNBC. Users called it “The Great Purge of 2026” on Instagram. Although Meta did not officially confirm the purge, some accounts suddenly lost millions of followers within hours, and around 50 million accounts were reportedly deleted or deactivated.
According to available information Instagram used advanced artificial intelligence systems for accounts connected to services for buying followers, bots or click farms, which artificially inflated the popularity of some profiles for a long time. A smaller but active community can thus be more valuable to Instagram’s algorithms than a number of inactive profiles. Important names include Kylie Jenner, Selena Gomez, Lionel Messi, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Dwayne Johnson or Katy Perry. Influencers and content creators from other countries also report a sharp drop in the number of followers.
According to Celebrity Radar, soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo reportedly lost around 6.6 million followers and Lionel Messi more than 4.8 million followerssinger and actress Selena Gomez almost six million. As one of India’s most followed celebrities, cricketer Virat Kohli has lost more than two million followers, former missus and actress Priyanka Chopra has lost 1.1 million.
Ariana Grande reportedly lost 5.5 million followers, Beyoncé 4.4 million, Taylor Swift 4.1 million, Miley Cyrus 3.2 million, Katy Perry 2.9 million, Rihanna 2 million and Shakira one million followers. Smaller creators and influencers lost about two to five percent of their followers during the purge.
