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Instagram carried out a massive cleanup of bots, fake accounts, and inactive profiles last Thursday, shaking up follower counts for influencers and celebrities worldwide, and Cuban accounts were no exception.
The event, dubbed by users as the "Great Purge of 2026," caused visible drops in profiles of all sizes. A spokesperson for Meta described it as "part of our routine process to remove inactive accounts," clarifying that "active followers are not affected." Globally, Kylie Jenner lost over 14 million followers, and Cristiano Ronaldo saw 6,622,220 disappear. Even the official Instagram account lost around nine million of its own followers.
But what happened to the Cuban influencers on Instagram? The data from SocialBlade reveals a very varied landscape. Here is the complete ranking:
The most affected (losses of followers):
- Sandra Cires: -55,278 ← the biggest drop of the group
- Lisandra Silva: -21,844
- Imaray Ulloa: -21,093
- Tropical Chick: -19,875
- The Butterfly: -13,055
- Amanda Díaz: -12,586
- Samantha Espineira: -10,799
- Daniela Reyes: -9,112
- Camila Guiribitey: -5,945
- Aly Sánchez: -3,530
- Rachel Vallori: -3,206
- Lianet Martí (La Mija): -1,811
- Kuki Delgado: -785 ← the least affected among those who lost
Those that resisted (or grew):
- Amanda Camaraza: +6,496 ← the biggest winner of the group
- Claudia Artiles: +3,749
- Rachel Arderi: +3,680
- La Dura: +3,442
- Samantha Hernández: +2,919
Sandra Cires Art, the popular Cuban content creator based in Miami, leads the list with a loss of 55,278 followers, more than double that of the second most affected. Lisandra Silva and Imaray Ulloa closely follow, both experiencing declines of over 21,000 followers.
The most striking contrast is represented by Amanda Camaraza, who not only did not lose followers but gained 6,496 during the purge, followed by Claudia Artiles with +3,749. These positive numbers amid a global cleanup suggest an active and genuine audience base.
It's important to clarify: these drops do not necessarily imply fraud or the purchase of followers. Meta estimates that between 10% and 15% of its active accounts are fake or spam, and by 2025, it had already removed over 500 million fake accounts according to its own Transparency Report. Any profile with followers accumulated over the years could be affected, regardless of its behavior on the platform.
This purge is part of a global trend: major platforms are purging inflated metrics in response to pressure from advertisers and regulators who demand more transparent audience data. X (formerly Twitter) conducted its own cleanup just a month earlier, suspending 208 bot accounts per minute.
What these numbers clearly indicate is that, beyond the totals displayed on screen, the real engagement of content creators is worth more than any inflated figure. The purge does not lie: what remains is the true audience.
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