Instagram bug gives people thousands of followers — and will take them back

Many were worried they'd been hacked — and are now upset that they got over-excited about having many thousands of new followers

An employee holds a cup with the Instagram logo at Facebook's corporate headquarters during a media event (Getty Images)

A bug over the weekend gave people thousands more Instagram followers than they really had — but they’re in the process of being taken back.

The problem gave some of the biggest users many thousands of extra followers. But they were all added by mistake and are already being removed.

“We've identified a bug causing incorrect follower counts to appear on some profiles,” a post on Instagram’s help centre says. “We're working to fix it, and any counts that have been affected will be restored when we’ve resolved the issue.”

Many have been concerned that they have either become Instagram famous without knowing it, or were being targeted by a cyberattack. But lots of other users are now upset that their inflated numbers are now being removed.

Unlike previous fluctuations in follower counts, the recent bug wasn’t removing bots and other fake accounts, but seems to have been an error in the way that the site counts followers.