Instagram’s Removal of Fake Followers and Privacy Changes Spark User Concern

Instagram’s Removal of Fake Followers and Privacy Changes Spark User Concern
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Instagram has recently undertaken a major cleanup of its platform, removing millions of fake, bot and inactive accounts, leading to sudden drops in follower counts for many users, including influencers and business pages. This action is part of a broader effort by the company to promote authentic engagement and combat non‑genuine accounts online.

According to reports, the purge has been wider and more aggressive than previous efforts, with some accounts experiencing sharp declines in followers over just a few hours. Instagram has said the changes aim to make metrics like likes and follower counts more realistic and trustworthy.

While many users have publicly acknowledged the initiative to improve platform quality, some have expressed worry over the removal of accounts they considered meaningful — including inactive or legacy accounts kept for sentimental reasons by families or communities.

In addition to the account cleanup, Instagram has also ended support for end‑to‑end encryption (E2EE) for direct messages (DMs), a privacy feature that previously ensured only the sender and recipient could read private messages. As of May 8, 2026, E2EE for Instagram messages is no longer available, meaning that direct messages on the platform will no longer be fully encrypted.

The removal of the encryption option — which had been introduced on the platform in recent years as an optional privacy protection — is intended to facilitate greater safety oversight, particularly for child protection and content moderation, according to Meta’s communications. Security experts and privacy advocates, however, have raised concerns that the change weakens user privacy, potentially exposing private message content to greater access by the company and third parties.