Instagram has returned to the center of discussions about authenticity and digital security after confirming, in 2026, a new mass removal of fake, inactive, and suspicious accounts from the platform. This move caused sudden drops in the number of followers of celebrities, influencers, and brands, reigniting debates about artificial audiences, digital credibility, and the rise of scams on social media.
Meta itself confirmed that the action is part of an ongoing process to combat spam, bots, fraudulent accounts, and profiles that violate the platform's policies. According to data released by the company, approximately 4% of its more than 3 billion monthly active users are fake accounts, equivalent to more than 140 million profiles globally.
The scale of the problem has become even more evident in recent years. In 2025 alone, Meta stated that it had removed nearly 10 million accounts posing as content creators, in addition to almost 12 million accounts linked to scam operations on its platforms. In another operation carried out in the same year, the company reported taking down approximately 8 million fraudulent accounts on Facebook and Instagram, as well as 21,000 fake pages and more than 6 million WhatsApp accounts related to digital scams.
For Melissa Pio, CEO of TEC4U, the new wave of removals goes beyond a simple "cleanup" of the platform and reveals an important transformation in the digital environment.
“Social media platforms have spent years prioritizing volume and reach above all else. Now, the platforms themselves are showing that a large part of that audience wasn't necessarily real or qualified. This completely changes how brands, creators, and companies need to view digital presence,” he states.
The issue is not new. In 2014, Instagram already carried out one of the largest removals of fake accounts in its history. At the time, celebrities suddenly lost millions of followers. The official Instagram profile even registered a drop of around 18 million followers, while names like Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo also suffered significant losses. According to the social network itself, the removed profiles were automated accounts, spam, or users who violated the terms of service.
Since then, Meta claims it has been improving its automatic detection mechanisms and progressively reducing the volume of fake accounts found on its platforms. Even so, the CEO points out that the digital market has become accustomed to using superficial metrics as parameters for relevance, influence, and even commercial value.
“Many companies still invest in campaigns looking only at the number of followers, without evaluating audience quality, real engagement rate, or the behavior of that community. The problem is that inflated metrics create an artificial perception of authority and impact,” explains Melissa.
According to her, the financial impact is also significant, especially for brands that work with creators, paid media, and digital influencer campaigns.
“When a company invests in profiles with an artificial audience, it may be paying for reach that simply doesn't exist in practice. Often, engagement seems high, but it doesn't convert because part of that base is made up of bots, inactive accounts, or users with no real connection to the brand,” he says.
Beyond the commercial aspect, the rise of fake profiles and automated accounts has also become a growing digital security problem. In recent years, criminals have used social media to perpetrate financial scams, clone company profiles, create fake stores, and deceive consumers by using visual identities and communication styles similar to those of legitimate brands.
The numbers released by Meta show the scale of this scenario. In 2024, the company removed 63,000 Instagram profiles involved in sextortion scams. The operation also took down 7,200 assets on Facebook, including 1,300 accounts, 200 pages, and 5,700 groups associated with the fraud. In 2025, the company removed 135,000 accounts linked to child exploitation and identified another 500,000 accounts related to the same group, eliminating them all from the platform.
For Melissa, the growth of these operations demonstrates how social media has become a strategic environment for cybercrime.
“Users have learned to be wary of suspicious emails, but there is still a very strong perception of security on social media. Scammers understood this quickly and began to exploit precisely the trust that people place in visually professional and seemingly legitimate profiles,” he says
The expert warns that the problem directly affects e-commerce companies and businesses that use social media as their main channel for relationship building and sales.
“Today, a fake profile can copy visual identity, campaigns, language, and even automated customer service to appear legitimate. Often, the consumer only realizes the scam after the purchase or data breach,” he explains.
Meta also reported that approximately 85% of banned ad accounts never invested any money on the platform, and that nearly 70% of these accounts are removed within a week of creation.
According to TEC4U, the trend is for platforms to increasingly tighten their authentication, verification, and moderation mechanisms, pressuring companies and content creators to build more organic and transparent communities.
“Platforms are moving towards a scenario where authenticity ceases to be a differentiator and becomes a basic requirement. Those who have built real relationships with their audience tend to suffer less impact. Models sustained by artificial numbers are becoming increasingly vulnerable to this type of exposure,” concludes Melissa Pio.
