Instagram Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Kevin Systrom smiles during the launch of a new service named Instagram Direct in New York December 12, 2013. Photo-sharing service Instagram unveiled a new feature on Thursday to let people send images and
IN PHOTO: Instagram Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Kevin Systrom smiles during the launch of a new service named Instagram Direct in New York December 12, 2013. Photo-sharing service Instagram unveiled a new feature on Thursday to let people send images and messages privately, as the Facebook-owned company seeks to bolster its appeal among younger consumers who are increasingly using mobile messaging applications. The new Instagram Direct feature allows users to send a photo or video to a single person or up to 15 people, and have a real-time text conversations. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson Reuters/Lucas Jackson

Instagram has purged millions of fake accounts, infuriating some Hollywood stars in the process as their popularity mellowed down a few notches overnight. The photo sharing app has deleted spam accounts and bots as a "general clean up" procedure.

Celebrities were infuriated with this move because it drastically reduced their followers on this medium. The accounts that have been deleted are mostly bot accounts, which perform semi- automated tasks. The Guardian revealed that these bot account selling companies enhance the virtual popularity of the celebrities by buying a bunch of followers for them. The practice is prevalent in Instagram Twitter and Vine. After such move, all users using their number of followers as a measure of their popularity and reach to the masses will receive a major setback.

In many cases, stars hire social media teams to manage their Instagram page to promote their profiles. These team will then buy followers in wholesale to portray big numbers to the advertisers. This practice is now axed down by Instagram's latest move, which had been undertaken to bring back the authenticity of the photo sharing app. An Instagram spokesman also emphasised that no "real" person's account will touched in this process.

As a reality check, Justin Bieber has lost 15 per cent of his fans, which used to total to 3.5 million followers. Akon came second in the loss as he has to shell out 2.5 million followers, which amounts to almost 56 per cent of his actual base. Meanwhile Ariana Grande lost 1.5 million people and reality TV queen Kim Kardashian's followers were reduced by 1.3 million. Rihanna and Selena Gomez also lost almost 1 million followers each, as told by Vanity Fair.

However, the biggest loser who emerged after the whole exercise is an anonymous account named 'chiragchirag78', whose numbers dwindled from a whopping 3.6 million followers to just eight. Ironically, Instagram also did not come off unscathed from this move as it lost 18.8 million followers.

The move, which came as a shock for many, was not actually a surprise. Instagram had already announced earlier that they will remove spam messages, fake accounts and other posts that fail to follow their guidelines. The site is owned by Facebook, which recently announced that it has touched 300 million users.