A post by alleged fact-checker Mohammed Zubair on Wednesday, 4 December 2025, generated controversy after he highlighted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had “lost 4 million followers” on X, without initially noting that the platform is conducting a large-scale purge of inactive and bot accounts affecting users globally.
Zubair wrote that Modi “lost 4 million (bots) followers,” and seemed to ignore that this was also the same for other public figures.
According to figures cited in his own thread, several international personalities also saw significant drops:
- Barack Obama: 11 million
- Justin Bieber: 18 million
- Katy Perry: 19 million
- Virat Kohli: 2 million
- Arvind Kejriwal: 1.1 million
X has confirmed that the platform is removing “inactive old accounts” as part of a system-wide clean-up.
Almost everyone had follower drop in last few days.
Kejriwal lost at least 1.1 Million
Kohli- 2 Million
Obama- 11 Million
Justin Bieber- 18 Million
Katy Perry- 19 MillionX is removing inactive old accounts. https://t.co/vBcyPoOLG9 pic.twitter.com/jZCHFuETbH
— Ankur Singh (@iAnkurSingh) December 4, 2025
Post Selectively Framed?
Several social media users accused Zubair of presenting the information in a way that singled out Modi before acknowledging similar drops across the board.
Communications researchers noted that the sequencing of the post, leading with Modi’s follower drop and describing them as “bots”, could mislead readers into assuming that the loss was unique to the Prime Minister or indicative of inflated follower metrics, despite the identical phenomenon occurring globally.
Analysts pointed out that other leaders, celebrities and athletes experienced even larger reductions, illustrating that the purge was platform-wide, not targeted.
X’s Global Purge of Dormant Accounts
The follower drops follow X’s ongoing policy of removing inactive, duplicate and spam-linked accounts to improve platform integrity. The company has carried out similar purges several times over the years, with high-profile accounts often losing millions of followers overnight.
Digital media observers say such clean-ups have no bearing on the popularity or engagement of users and affect accounts uniformly.
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