Can you get banned for fake followers on Instagram?

In recent times the world of marketing has seen a significant shift in the social media arena since most of the audience today is found on social media. People from different niches, ages, and likes can be easily distinguished on these social media platforms, allowing them to market themselves quickly. For this, they have seen to contact many social media influencers. These people generally have a substantial amount of following on their social media platforms, allowing them a direct link with a vast number of viewers. Companies take advantage of this by sponsoring ads on their specific media profile, allowing their viewers a clear communication between the company and its desired clients.

For this, many people have started to create a bot or pay people to follow them. This allows their profile to look huge, making them a potential candidate for being sponsored by these ads. These people use services like SimplyGram service to keep track of how things are moving on their profile in terms of interactions and following.

Can Instagram ban such huge accounts?

People who have fake followers can not be banned. The basic idea lies in the fact that no one can honestly say for sure whether those accounts are real or not. This makes a considerable suspicion, which makes the dynamic challenging to prove. Besides, Instagram would not like to defame its celebrities as it would only bring a bad image to the company’s profile. Similarly, accounts with such a considerable following have some weight and can be dusted off the platform since they may also have a real following. Hence, there are many reasons why such celebrities or fake celebrities can not be banned in the general term.

Can fake followers be banned?

Just like these vast accounts can not be banned, fake followers can also be forbidden due to the exact same reason why these extensive accounts with a phony following cannot be prohibited. It all depends on the lack of evidence that the people have on such followers, and therefore, it becomes hard to identify something as being fake sine it can have a fair chance of being genuine.  Hence it is impossible that Instagram would ban individual accounts following the following being fake.

What can be the indicators for fake followers?

Generally, the easiest method to identify if someone has fake followers is the ratio between the number of followers and the number of interactions it has on a particular post. Usually, an account may have over one hundred thousand followers, but the likes might only be five or six thousand, with only two to three hundred comments. This shows a clear distinction between the amount of following and the number of interactions a post has gotten. This is the number one indicator to locate if an account has a fake following.

What must be done for it?

Instagram must create an algorithm that should detect specific abnormalities and assume an account to be fake. This would promote transparency.