Skip to main content

The context you need, when you need it

When news breaks, you need to understand what actually matters — and what to do about it. At Vox, our mission to help you make sense of the world has never been more vital. But we can’t do it on our own.

We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today?

Join now

Spring Cleaning! Instagram Kicks Off Its First Big Spam Purge.

More photos, more problems.

Instagram

Instagram is dealing with a minor headache right now — cleaning up the junk you don’t want to see.

The Facebook-owned photo-sharing service is purging old, inactive and spammy accounts, the first time it has done so across its entire user base.

I was tipped off late last night after opening the app, when I noticed a pop-up message in my activity feed. You’ll probably see the same thing soon, if you haven’t already.

In a nutshell, Instagram is warning its users that they may see a drop in their followers, due to a purge of the bogus accounts.

“After receiving feedback from members in the Instagram community, we recently fixed an issue that incorrectly included inactive accounts in follower/following lists,” an Instagram spokesman said in a statement. “We believe this will provide a more authentic experience and genuinely reflect people who are actually engaging with each other’s content.”

Instagram isn’t a stranger to spam or bogus accounts. About a year and a half ago, things got so ugly and spammy on the service that Instagram had to acknowledge it publicly, and vowed that it would try harder to take on the problem with the help and resources of its parent company. It also pleaded for the community to police itself by flagging suspect posts and accounts.

From the outside looking in, the purge doesn’t seem comparable to, say, Twitter’s gigantic spam purge of 2013, where the microblogging service killed millions of fake accounts. Anecdotally, I’ve hardly noticed a change in my follower count, and others I’ve spoken with said that they don’t see much of a drop.

But this is the first real push to kill a whole bunch of offenders at once. That’s a good thing — even if it took the company a long time to get around to it.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

More in Technology

Podcasts
Are humanoid robots all hype?Are humanoid robots all hype?
Podcast
Podcasts

AI is making them better — but they’re not going to be doing your chores anytime soon.

By Avishay Artsy and Sean Rameswaram
Future Perfect
The old tech that could help stop the next airborne pandemicThe old tech that could help stop the next airborne pandemic
Future Perfect

Glycol vapors, explained.

By Shayna Korol
Future Perfect
Elon Musk could lose his case against OpenAI — and still get what he wantsElon Musk could lose his case against OpenAI — and still get what he wants
Future Perfect

It’s not about who wins. It’s about the dirty laundry you air along the way.

By Sara Herschander
Life
Why banning kids from AI isn’t the answerWhy banning kids from AI isn’t the answer
Life

What kids really need in the age of artificial intelligence.

By Anna North
Culture
Anthropic owes authors $1.5B for pirating work — but the claims process is a Kafkaesque messAnthropic owes authors $1.5B for pirating work — but the claims process is a Kafkaesque mess
Culture

“Your AI monster ate all our work. Now you’re trying to pay us off with this piece of garbage that doesn’t work.”

By Constance Grady
Future Perfect
Some deaf children are hearing again because of a new gene therapySome deaf children are hearing again because of a new gene therapy
Future Perfect

A medical field that almost died is quietly fixing one disease at a time.

By Bryan Walsh