On one hand, the booming market around fake Instagram followers is a depressing and damning indictment of a society that values notional online clout over actual relationships. On the other, I’ve been hovering around the 500-mark for months and I’m getting pretty desperate.
It looks like I’ve missed my chance, though. On Monday, Instagram announced that it will purge fake followers, likes and comments designed to make pages looks way more popular than they really are.
"Recently, we've seen accounts use third-party apps to artificially grow their audience," Instagram said in a blog post.
"Starting today, we will begin removing inauthentic likes, follows and comments from accounts that use third-party apps to boost their popularity."
Just like that, your dream of shilling protein pancakes to non-existent bots is all but over. Instagram will even rub your nose in it, notifying you when they remove fakery from your page.
If you’ve connected your account to one of the apps that sells fake followers you’ll have to change passwords, and users who continue to use these third-party services will have their "experience impacted", which sounds like something the Silicon Valley equivalent of Tony Soprano would say.
Enjoy your followers while you have them, phoneys.
Nick Pope is the Site Director of Esquire, overseeing digital strategy for the brand.
