Heads up, Twitter users: Your follower count may soon go down, especially if you've paid for fake followers in the past.

In a bid to cut down on fraud, Twitter will remove locked accounts from follower counts.

Twitter will lock an account if it appears to be compromised or in violation of the platform's rules or terms of service. Twitter may, for instance, lock an account for: "tweeting a large volume of unsolicited replies or mentions, tweeting misleading links, or if a large number of accounts block the account after mentioning them," Gadde wrote. The company also sometimes locks users' accounts following data breaches.

After locking an account, Twitter contacts the account owner, who must change their password. If the account owner fails to do so, Twitter will keep the account locked so nobody can log into or tweet from it.

"In most cases, these accounts were created by real people but we cannot confirm that the original person who opened the account still has control and access to it," Gadde explained. Spam accounts (aka bots), on the other hand, "typically exhibit spammy behavior from the beginning." Twitter already has technology in place to automatically identify and shut down spam accounts.

The change—which will not impact tweets, likes, or retweets—is slated to take effect this week.

"Most people will see a change of four followers or fewer; others with larger follower counts will experience a more significant drop," Twitter's Vijaya Gadde wrote in a blog post. "We understand this may be hard for some, but we believe accuracy and transparency make Twitter a more trusted service for public conversation."

According to The New York Times, the number of locked accounts on Twitter totals "tens of millions." The change is intended to curb the practice of buying fake followers, the report notes.