Researchers from the Stanford Internet Observatory, in partnership with NPR, uncovered thousands of LinkedIn profiles with fake photos and details.
In all, there appear to be more than 1000 profiles using AI-generated display images, often revealed with too-perfect attributes, according to researchers Renée DiResta and Josh Goldstein.
NPR reports that many of these fake profiles are used as a marketing tool to generate interest in real companies. A fake profile contacts a real person; if they show interest, a real salesperson takes over the conversation.
An analysis found more than 70 companies appearing in those 1000 fake profiles, some of which told NPR they had hired outside sellers to boost their sales. One of the reasons for using fake profiles could be to get around LinkedIn's limits on organic post volume.
"Our policies make it clear that every LinkedIn profile must represent a real person. We are constantly updating our technical defenses to better identify fake profiles and remove them from our community, as we did in this case," said Leonna Spilman, LinkedIn spokesperson. .
"At the end of the day, it's about making sure our members can connect with real people, and we're working to ensure they have a safe environment in which to do so."
The enigma of the false profile
The anonymity that the internet provides is the perfect breeding ground for all kinds of identity theft, fake accounts, and bizarre behavior.
Facebook has been fighting fake accounts for years. The service routinely removes more than a billion fake accounts per quarter, underscoring the magnitude of the problem. Twitter is also inundated with "egg" accounts that are often fake.
Fake accounts are useful for spreading targeted messages (something Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia have been caught doing), scamming people, and generating rumors about certain topics.
In the case of LinkedIn, it seems that fake accounts are used to generate rumors about certain companies. RingCentral, one of the companies that appeared to be using the fake accounts, has distanced itself.
"This is not how we do business," RingCentral CISO Heather Hinton said in an interview with NPR. "It was a reminder to us that technology moves faster than even those of us watching can keep up. And we just need to be more and more attentive to what we're doing and what our vendors are going to do in the future." our name". ."
Via NPR