title: How to web scrape followers from Instagram web browser?
body: <p>Can anyone tell me how to access the underlying URL to view a given user's Instagram followers? I am able to do this with Instagram API, but given the pending changes to the approval process, I have decided to switch to scraping.</p>
  
  <p>The Instagram web browser allows you to view the follower list for any given public user - for example, to view Instagram's followers, visit "<a href="https://www.instagram.com/instagram" rel="noreferrer">https://www.instagram.com/instagram</a>", and then click on the followers URL to open a window that paginates through viewers (note: you must be logged in to your account to view this).</p>
  
  <p>I note that the URL changes to "<a href="https://www.instagram.com/instagram/followers" rel="noreferrer">https://www.instagram.com/instagram/followers</a>" when this window pops up, but I can't seem to view the underlying page source for this URL.</p>
  
  <p>Since it appears on my browser window, I assume that I will be able to scrape. But do I have to use a package like Selenium? Does anyone know what the underlying URL is, so I don't have to use Selenium?</p>
  
  <p>As an example, I am able to directly access the underlying feed data by visiting "instagram.com/instagram/media/", from which I can scrape and paginate through all iterations. I would like to do something similar with the list of followers, and access this data directly (rather than using Selenium).</p>