Facebook-owned popular social media platform Instagram yesterday released a statement announcing its new move with the intent of “removing inauthentic likes, follows and comments from accounts that use third-party apps to boost their popularity”. This move comes as part of the new Community Guidelines and Terms of Use, which the company announced in a press statement.
Acknowledging the fact that “accounts use third-party apps to artificially grow their audience”, Instagram said that such behaviour was bad for the community. So, in order to curb such activity, the platform will remove inauthentic behaviour and also alert the accounts via in-app messages about the same.
Following notification regarding such activity, Instagram will also suggest users to secure their account by changing their password. The company further added that people who use these types of apps share their username and password, and their accounts are sometimes used by third-party apps for inauthentic likes, follows and comments.
A report by The Verge citing another NYT report highlighted a new phenomenon known as “nanoinfluencers”, or people with as little as 1,000 followers now trying to earn free products in exchange for advertising on Instagram.
Although Instagram has quite a history of removing fake accounts, it hasn’t taken action against fake likes before. And this new move is a much needed one if Instagram wants to protect the integrity of its ad business.
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