LinkedIn bot war: Half 'Apple staff" accounts prove to be fake
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San Francisco: Around 50% of the Apple staff accounts on LinkedIn disappeared overnight when the platform removed bots. The professional networking platform's efforts to remove fake accounts and bots proved that around 50% of the accounts claiming to belong to Apple employees were not real.
Apple's LinkedIn account count decreased from 576,562 to 284,991. A similar dramatic drop was also seen in terms of Amazon. The number of people claiming to be currently employed at Amazon fell from 1.25 million to 838,601 in one day. That is a 33% drop.
According to AppleInsider, such fraudulent behaviour - with fake accounts claiming to be members of groups they were not - has been on the rise. The fake accounts have been using profile descriptions and images stolen and edited from actual employees.
New research has found that fake accounts and bot problems are widespread on social media. Large firms have said their staff counts were considerably reduced after the cleanup. LinkedIn, in an official statement, said that it is constantly working on keeping the platform clear of fake accounts.