LinkedIn has taken measures to combat the spread of scams and misinformation by verifying 55 million of its users.

• The company, LinkedIn, is taking measures to prevent the spread of false information, which has increased due to the growth of artificial intelligence, by verifying its users, with over 55 million individuals already verified.
• Any social network has the most verified individual human identities, according to Microsoft-owned service.
• LinkedIn has invested significantly to verify its users without charging a subscription fee, unlike Meta and X.

To combat the spread of misinformation fueled by the rise of artificial intelligence, LinkedIn has verified more than 55 million of its users, at no cost.

In November, LinkedIn will start displaying user verification badges in its main feed, with the company claiming to have the highest number of verified individual human identities among major social networks.

"According to Oscar Rodriguez, LinkedIn's vice president of trust and safety, the increasing difficulty of distinguishing between real and fake images, such as deep-fake videos and photos, poses a significant challenge in combating misinformation and fake expertise."

In April 2023, LinkedIn started verifying its users, following the lead of social media platform X, which required users to subscribe to its premium service to receive a verification badge in November 2022. This move came after Facebook and Instagram launched Meta Verified, a subscription service that granted users verification badges for their profiles.

Social media platforms are intensifying their efforts to combat fake accounts and misinformation, as the proliferation of generative AI technology since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 has made it easier and more cost-effective for individuals to create false accounts and content.

LinkedIn aims to have 100 million users verified by 2025, while charging peers for verification.

LinkedIn currently verifies corporate email addresses for employees at select companies, but Rodriguez stated that the company is considering expanding this technique.

The verification process for the input sentence can be done through submitting government IDs with partners such as Clear and Persona, and for users in India, through the digitization service DigiLocker.

Rodriguez stated that the company's spending on verifications is a "sizable investment," although the exact amount was not disclosed.

""The authenticity of someone will be crucial to the future of the internet, and we aim to make it accessible to everyone on LinkedIn to build a trusted community," he stated."

Less than a fraction of LinkedIn's over 1 billion members have been confirmed.

Verification is key

Fake accounts have been a problem on LinkedIn even before the advent of generative AI. High-profile tech executives such as Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, and Mark Zuckerberg have been targeted by spoof accounts on the social network. LinkedIn claims that it removes 99% of fake profiles before they are encountered by users.

Gyanda Sachdeva, LinkedIn vice president of consumer products, stated that users could differentiate between fake accounts and genuine profiles based on work experience and profile pictures, according to CNBC.

"Verification is crucial for professional connections and networking platforms, especially when generating photos is easy."

Meta announced that it is testing facial recognition technology to prevent users from using celebrity likenesses to scam others on its services.

LinkedIn is expanding its verification process to include job listings and company pages in addition to individual users.

According to Sachdeva, users are motivated to adopt verification on LinkedIn because they use the platform to search for jobs and showcase their careers. On the other hand, LinkedIn claims that verified profiles receive 60% more profile views, 30% more connection requests, and 50% more post engagement than nonverified profiles.

To maintain a high standard for verified users, LinkedIn is adopting a cautious approach in verifying users, such as when a user's professional name does not match the name on their government ID.

Rodriguez stated that it is better to err on the side of not verifying someone than to verify someone and later realize it was a mistake.

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