LONDON: World celebrities including famous football players Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have lost millions of followers.
World celebrities including famous football players Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have lost millions of followers, however, Meta has also explained the reason for the decrease in followers.
As a result of a massive crackdown on inactive accounts by the social media platform Instagram, owned by Meta, the number of followers of several world celebrities including football legends Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi has decreased by millions. The sudden drop in followers on Instagram had caused a wave of concern among users and many people believed it to be the result of an organized ‘unfollow campaign’. However, according to reports, Meta launched a campaign to delete spam, bots and inactive profiles to make the platform transparent, which had the greatest impact on celebrities.
According to reports, the most followed athlete on Instagram, Cristiano Ronaldo, lost about 8 million followers, after which his number decreased from 673 million to 666 million. Argentine star footballer Lionel Messi’s followers decreased by about 5 million, and his followers decreased from 512 million to 507 million.
Among other celebrities, Kylie Jenner was the most affected by the campaign, losing 15 million (15 million) followers overnight. Indian cricketer Virat Kohli lost 2 million, while Justin Bieber and Pope Francis also saw significant drops in their followers. Experts say that Meta has taken this step to maintain authenticity and transparency on the platform.
High-profile accounts often attract fake accounts and bots. After cleaning up these accounts, celebrities and brands will now have a more real reach and public response, which is extremely important for Instagram partnerships and sponsorships. There has been no official statement from Instagram on this large-scale cleanup yet, but the move is being hailed as a major step towards transparency in the social media market.
