Our spirits rise and fall by the number of “likes” we receive on our social media posts.

But would your appetite for online validation change if your face was literally pelted with emoji?

Artist Tadas Maksimovas stood in front of a rapid-firing “Emotigun” so the rest of us won’t have to.

Using a third-party app to gain followers and likes on Instagram are about to become a lot less effective at artificially growing audiences.

Instagram revealed today that it is going to war against fake follows and likes by using AI to identify accounts that engage in the practice. Starting today, Instagram says it will remove inauthentic likes, follows and comments from accounts that use third-party apps to boost their popularity.

This is the message you’ll see if you’re guilty: