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LinkedIn Cracking Down on Its Many Fake Accounts

By Laura Tucker
Linkedin Fake Accounts Featured

There isn’t a service around, online or off, that hasn’t been hit with fake accounts. However, LinkedIn has become well-known in that regard. Nevertheless, there’s hope that the social media site could change things up. LinkedIn said in its Community Report that it’s been working on the problem, noting that for a six-month period last year, that it stopped 96 percent of faked accounts.

Fake LinkedIn Accounts Stopped

LinkedIn’s Community Report covers the time frame of July 1, 2021, through December 31, 2021. It explains that the social network is a “safe, trusted and professional community where real people share, learn, and connect.” Despite that trust, there are apparent fake accounts, spam and scams, content violations, and copyright infringements, according to the LinkedIn report.

Linkedin Fake Accounts App
Image source: Unsplash

LinkedIn’s policy prohibits fake profiles and requires that all account holders “are real people who represent themselves accurately and contribute authentically.”

From that six-month period last year, LinkedIn’s automated defenses blocked 96 percent of the fraudulent accounts. The remaining four percent of the accounts that were tagged as being fake were stopped for manual review.

In a continued look at the numbers, 11.9 million of the fake accounts were stopped at registration, 4.4 million were restricted before members reported them, and another 127 thousand fake accounts were restricted after they were reported.

Other Fraudulent LinkedIn Content

Fake accounts aren’t LinkedIn’s only problem. The social network is also always on the lookout for spam and scams. Just as with other social networks, apps, and websites, that type of behavior isn’t allowed.

LinkedIn said spam and scams are the most common type of fraudulent content it gets. Inappropriate commercial activity and repeated communications or invitations are included in that.

Linkedin Fake Accounts Search
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Content policy violations are caught on LinkedIn as well. This includes information that is harassing or abusive, untrue, violent or graphic, hateful or derogatory, adult, and exploitative of children.

LinkedIn says it stopped 99.1 percent of automated defenses in that six-month period. The company removed 70.8 million proactively, and 179 thousand were removed after reports from members.

The Community Report noted that LinkedIn doesn’t tolerate violations of its Professional Community policies and will remove them promptly. It also noted that it can’t catch every violation, so members can always file a report. LinkedIn also takes in complaints of copyright infringement.

Violations of Other Social Networks

Does this make you feel less safe with your LinkedIn account? It’s caught many violations that could be harmful to users, yes, but does that mean it has fewer violations than other social networks?

Linkedin Fake Accounts Other Accounts
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It’s hard to tell, as they all display the numbers differently. Twitter claims it took action on 4.3 million accounts in that same six-month period. For the second quarter of 2021, TikTok stopped 148 million fake accounts. 0.09 percent of Facebook content was bullying and harassment in the last quarter of 2021, while 0.05 to 0.96 percent of Instagram content was bullying or harassment.

It’s good to know that LinkedIn is monitoring and working on its account problems. Eighteen months ago, we heard about a phishing attack on LinkedIn, but it seems after reading the details of the community report that it’s on top of it. That was questionable last year when details of a LinkedIn phishing campaign were released.

Image credit: Public domain Vectors. Alterations by Laura Tucker.

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Laura Tucker
Laura has spent more than 20 years writing news, reviews, and op-eds, with the majority of those years as an editor as well. She has exclusively used Apple products for the past 35 years. In addition to writing and editing at MTE, she also runs the site’s sponsored review program.

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