LinkedIn just published its latest Transparency Report, covering the period between January and June 2021, outlining all the content and account violations it detected and took action against within the period. It also included other accountability elements, such as government requests for information and more.
LinkedIn’s Transparency Report highlights key usage trends, particularly about in-app topic discussions, as well as changes in how scammers and spammers are looking to target users over time. These shifts are worth noting, especially now that LinkedIn usage is on the rise.
Countermeasure Status
Beginning with fake accounts, LinkedIn says that its systems have detected no increase in fake account prevalence. LinkedIn reported 11.6 million detections during the registration stage in the observance period, where it has seen a slight rise in fake profile restrictions over time. It’s difficult to say how well LinkedIn does on this front, given that it can only report on accounts that it’s able to detect, meaning that it can’t supply a true percentage of the number of fake accounts in the app. What’s important is that numbers are steady and that the platform’s detection systems are gradually catching up to would-be violators.
Scam and spam activity also saw a decline during this period, dropping to 66.1 million removals from 91.9 million from the quarter before. LinkedIn has been seeing this number decline over the past two years and even includes an update that explains:
“An earlier version of this report reflected that LinkedIn proactively removed 22.4 million spam and scams during the reporting period of July through December 2020. We have edited the report to accurately reflect that LinkedIn proactively removed 91.9 million spam and scams during such reporting period.”
Misinformation removals are also on the rise. Over the past three reporting periods, the platform has removed 23k misinformation posts, presently up to 147k. Along with this, violent and graphic removals have also increased, reflecting increased app usage, but suggesting that there’s also an increase in misusage, though harassment and abusive content did slightly dip.
As noted earlier, government requests also rose, with the U.S. submitting the most number of removal requests, which mostly related to search warrants and subpoenas, followed by Germany, France, and India. China is here too, though surprisingly, it only had five requests.
The Wrap
The main trend insights here pertain to constantly changing regulatory landscapes, those that can potentially influence the broader social media scene. For LinkedIn, which currently experiences consistent growth, these reports detail an important angle about user issues and how it reflects the expanded use of the platform for a wider range of purposes.
Maintaining user safety is a top priority for any platform, with this report reassuring users that LinkedIns security protocols can keep pace with the evolving challenges, risks, and actors that pose a threat to user integrity. That being said, fake account violations remain a problem for LinkedIn and present it with an ongoing challenge that it must continue to contend with until it’s able to fully neutralize it.
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