Celebs lose MILLIONS of Twitter followers in surprise purge – Obama, Katy Perry and Ronaldo despair as fake fans disappear

TWITTER's latest purge of fake accounts has seen celebs like Justin Bieber and Katy Perry lose millions of followers.

Pop star Perry – who has the most-followed account on the platform – suffered a massive drop of 1.5million followers.

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The singer saw her follower count slashed by 1.4 percent from 109.61million down to 108.1 million followers.

Newly-engaged Bieber suffered a dip of 1.3 percent after losing 1.4million followers, bringing his new total to 105.31million followers.

Rihanna, Ellen DeGeneres, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga also lost around 2million followers each, according to .

But former US president Barack Obama beat them after his followers shrank by 2.1million from his previous 103.63 million, leaving him at 101 million.

Meanwhile his successor Donald Trump – whose Twitter tirades are as divisive as his politics – lost a mere 340,000 followers, taking him from 53.4million to 53.1million.

Other losers include the official YouTube account (down 2million) and Christiano Ronaldo (down more than 1million).

Surprisingly, it was Twitter's  primary account that took the brunt of the impact – dropping 12 percent from 62.85 million to 55.35 million followers.

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The company announced on Wednesday that it was wiping these suspicious profiles from follower counts – the little tally on your Twitter page that shows how many people follow you – with the Washington Post noting that 70million accounts in total had been axed.

To put that figure into perspective, Twitter as a whole boasts 336million monthly active users, though it's unclear how many members it has overall.

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"Most people will see a change of four followers or fewer; others with larger follower counts will experience a more significant drop," said Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's legal, policy and trust and safety lead in a announcing the cull.

Twitter has been grappling with shady bots and spam accounts (automated profiles that aren't run by humans) on its service for years.

A 2017 pegged the amount of bots on the platform at 48million.

And earlier this year a investigation revealed that millions of these fake accounts were created to help celebs sell products and boost follower counts for influencers.

But Twitter claims that this latest clampdown mainly targeted accounts created by real people. There's also no evidence that these celebs purchased the accounts they just lost.

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"Our ongoing work to improve the health of conversations on Twitter encompasses all aspects of our service," added Gadde.

"This specific update is focused on followers because it is one of the most visible features on our service and often associated with account credibility. Once an account is locked, it cannot Tweet, like or Retweet and it is not served ads."

Twitter said the change shouldn't hit its monthly or daily active user numbers – a statement clearly directed at worried investors.

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