Following a cull of spammers said to make up 8.7% of Facebook profiles, some of the social network’s most popular artist pages have seen a sufficient drop in ‘Likes’.

That’s according to statistics from Pagedata which found that Rihanna lost 28,275 Facebook likes while Lady Gaga, who boasts 53 million Facebook Likes, lost 34,326.

Other popular artists to have lost out include Shakira, who had 26,406 fake Facebook Likes removed, Justin Bieber, who had 27,859 fake Facebook likes removed and Michael Jackson who lost 19,680.

In August, Facebook announced that they would begin purging Pages of fake Facebook likes by deleting fake accounts.

Writing in its blog, the social networking giant said: “On average, less than 1% of Likes on any given Page will be removed, providing they and their affiliates have been abiding by our terms,”, adding that its new automated efforts will remove fake Facebook likes “gained by malware, compromised accounts, deceived users, or purchased bulk likes.”

It is thought to be cracking down the issue because it could affect its targeted advertising service. [MusicWeek]