“In December 2014, we’re fixing an ongoing issue that incorrectly includes inactive or fake accounts in follower/following lists,” the company explained in a recent post.
Instagram did not respond immediately to a request for exact numbers, but accounts belonging to some celebrities lost millions of followers.
Here are the top celebrity losses:
- Justin Bieber, who has the second-most-followed account on Instagram after Instagram itself, lost about 3.47 million followers and is down to 20.3 million, according to archived numbers from SocialBlade.com, which tracks social media statistics.
- Singer Ariana Grande lost about 1.4 million.
- Kim Kardashian lost 1.2 million.
- Beyoncé lost about 692,000.
- Harry Styles of One Direction lost 784,008.