Instagram really wants to fight against fake likes, comments and follows by starting to remove them more actively. Any fake follows and likes from accounts that are using third-party services to get more attention are starting to get removed now for violating the Community Guidelines and Terms of Use that rule the platform. All this came to us straight from a company announcement as part of a policy change earlier today.
According to that statement, Instagram built some machine learning-powered moderation tools which will help them identify which accounts use this kind of services and they will automatically remove the comments, likes and follows. Each account that will be linked to using a third-party app in order to boost its popularity will be notified within Instagram that its likes – the fake ones – have been removed.
Also, they will be prompted to change their password in case those apps have somehow compromised their account security. As Instagram continues to grow into a platform for influencers and brands which look to hawk more products it will inevitably lead to more accounts turning to third-party apps which are meant to boost their posts’ popularity in an artificial way.
According to the New York Times, the phenomenon dubbed as ‘nanoinfluencers’ characterizes people with as few as 1,000 followers who are now trying to earn free products in exchange for advertising those exact items on the platform. Just as it happened with Twitter cracking down on bots, Instagram will need to continue addressing fraudulent activity, if it wants to protect its ad business with full integrity.
Despite the fact that Instagram started removing fake accounts for a while, it is the first instance we saw it take a stand against fake likes. According to Instagram’s announcement, the following weeks will show us more measures being taken towards this new-found mission.
Juana loves to cover the tech and gaming industry, she always stays on the first row of CES conference and reports live from there.
