Indian celebrities, politicians and Modi himself have been among the Twitter accounts to see a significant downfall in their followers by the micro-blogging site's recent purge.
Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi's Twitter handle suffered a loss of around 300,000 followers, reducing his numbers from 43.4 million to 43.1 million.
Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan, who lost nearly 400,000 followers in the purge, lashed out over the huge loss which brought his number down to 34.1 million. It was the second time this year the actor had suffered a blow to his number of followers, after Twitter deleted fake and inactive accounts in January.
According to Indian cyber expert Himanshu Kikani, the crack-down on fake Twitter followers was to curb the spread of misinformation or "fake news" generated through the mico-blogging site.
"There was a significant rise of fake accounts on Twitter. They were used to spread hoax news on this platform," Mr Kikani said.
"Twitter has set some criteria to check whether an account is real or fake. If an account does not respond to questions asked by Twitter, it gets blocked. Recently, Twitter has started deleting those accounts.
"It is a welcome move to encourage healthy experience for the users."
Twitter announced the purge in a written statement, telling users the mass-deletion of locked and fake accounts was to build trust and healthier relationships on the platform.
Twitter's latest purge of fake accounts cost celebrities
Twitter's decision to delete the fake and locked accounts caused celebrities millions of followers. Famous pop star Katy Perry, one of the most-followed personalities on Twitter, lost 2.1 million followers, bringing her follower-count to 107 million.
Another celebrity, Justin Bieber, also saw a significant downfall in his followers, with the Canadian singer noting that his follower count was slashed by 1.3 percent - a loss that amounted to 1.4 million. Former US president Barack Obama and star footballer Cristiano Ronaldo lost 2.1 and 1.21 million followers respectively.
Celebrities who lost the highest number of followers
Katy Perry 2.1 million
Barack Obama 2.1 million
Lady Gaga 2 million
Justin Bieber 1.4 million
Christiano Ronaldo 1.2 million
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey lost 200,000 followers
Share
