Instagram Rapture, Facebook next ??

[cronus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30548463

Instagram deletes millions of accounts in spam purge

Photo-sharing app Instagram has removed millions of accounts believed to be posting spam, angering many legitimate users.

People who lost a lot of followers criticised the action, dubbing it the "Instagram Rapture".

Like its parent company Facebook, Instagram routinely removes accounts to limit spam and prevent users buying followers to appear more popular.

Rapper Akon reportedly lost 56% of his followers in the cull.

Figures collated by developer Zach Allia - not affiliated to Instagram - totted up the impact of the purge on the site's top 100 accounts.

The big losers were Justin Bieber (minus 3,538,228 followers), and an online marketing specialist called Wellington Campos, which lost 3,284,304 followers overnight.

One account, chiragchirag78, lost 99% of his followers - 3,660,460 - before he himself was deleted.

Instagram's own account on the site lost 18,880,211 followers overnight.

(continued)

[rachelbean]

That's a lot of spam.

[cronus]

That's a lot of spam.

More than the Holocaust.

[Tero]

Well, teh net is going that way. How soon till gridlock?

A friend runs a Finnish board with 10-20 members checking in daily. Hundreds of robots prowl each day followed by spammers. He deletes most spammers after one post. Still, a lot of work.

[laklak]

Why do so many people hate Spam? Nowt wrong with a Spam sammich now and again, particularly with some Heinz 57 sauce.