Curiously, a number of Instagram celebrities with millions of followers have been recently tagging their photos with the location Singapore.
But some of them have never even been to the island city-state. They’re doing so because they believe it’s helping their photos get more exposure, reports Mic.
Indeed, the trick did seem to work. An Instagram representative confirmed to Quartz that a bug “impacted engagement when posts were tagged with Singapore,” but the issue has since been fixed.
That might be unwelcome news for Instagram users trying to game the system. Like its parent company, Facebook, Instagram now uses an algorithm to sort users’ feeds.
Los Angeles-based Instagram user KingBach, who has 11.3 million followers, posted two photos this past week with the geotag “Singapore, Singapore,” both of which garnered thousands of likes.
Another Los Angeles celebrity, Lele Pons, who has 11.6 million Instagram followers, shared 10 posts with the Singapore geotag over the last week.
But some followers have been catching on. In fact, some Instagram power users tried to cover up their tracks by removing Singapore as their location after a period of time.
When Canadian Christian Collins, who has 3.8 million followers, posted a photo of Disneyland on Dec. 10 with the geotag ”Singapore, Singapore,” someone responded: “There’s no Disneyland in Singapore..where were you actually.”