Facebook’s photo and video-sharing social network
Instagram has pledged to remove fake likes, followers and comments from its pages. Launched in October 2010, the network is a hub for video makers and is a hit with a younger age group. Like its parent Facebook, Instagram has become a key online marketing tool for many companies and individuals, and as with Facebook, social media marketers use a range of means to promote their Instagram pages - these include the fake likes, followers and comments that are prominent across many networks.
Instagram will leverage machine learning tools to isolate “inauthentic” behavior and target accounts that have shared account details with third-party apps. Instagram has updated its ‘Community Guidelines and Terms of Use’ and suggested users should reset their passwords to avoid disruption. Once an account is flagged for inauthentic activity it will be suspended and become active again once the registered user logs in to change its password. Users will receive an in-app notification when their account has been flagged for inauthentic activity.
The move follows a New York Times report that suggests ‘nanoinfluencers’ - users that have no more than 1000 followers - are advertising products to gain followers and receive commissions. In a similar vein, Facebook’s owner Mark Zuckerberg recently blocked over 1.5 billion fake accounts and committed to reducing the number of ‘click-bait’ posts on Facebook.
Do you know of any other social networks involved in content purges? Let us know the details. Add your comments below.
