Instagram to fix bug that causes follower count to mysteriously disappear

San Francisco: Has your Instagram follower count mysteriously been altered overnight? There is no need to fret because Facebook Inc's photo-sharing social network said it will fix a bizarre bug that caused a change in follower counts of users by Friday. In fact, the bug led to popular accounts see millions of their followers disappear overnight, but Instagram confirmed the issue on Wednesday and said that they are actively working to resolve it.

"We're expecting to have this issue resolved by 9 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (PST) tomorrow. We understand this is frustrating, and our team is hard at work to get things back to normal," the photo-messaging app tweeted.

Bug reaches India too

It looks like the bug hit Instagram users in India also as many public figures in the country complain about the glitch on Instagram and Twitter.

According to media reports, many users wondered if the drop in follower count was a result of Instagram culling fake and inactive accounts, as part of the company's fight against spam. While the photo-messaging mobile app claims to have about one billion users, it did not mention how many users were affected by the bug.

The Instagram bug was reported soon after Twitter got infected with a similar bug that resulted in constant fluctuations on the number of 'Likes' and 'Retweets' on the platform.