LinkedIn to Show User Verification Badges Within Primary Feed

LinkedIn will reportedly begin showing user verification badges within its primary feed in November.

This move comes after the company began verifying users in April 2023 to combat fake profiles, scams and misinformation fueled by artificial intelligence (AI), CNBC reported Friday (Oct. 25).

“Being able to understand the authenticity of someone will be essentially critical to how we see the internet progress in the future,” Oscar Rodriguez, vice president, product management at LinkedIn responsible for the company’s trust and privacy efforts, told CNBC in an interview, per the report. “We want to basically make it broadly accessible and through that build a trusted community on LinkedIn.”

LinkedIn verifies people for free, according to the report. It does so by contacting them through their corporate email addresses, if they work at select big companies, or by having them submit their government IDs to Clear, Persona or, in India, DigiLocker.

The company has verified 55 million of its 1 billion members and aims to verify 100 million by 2025, the report said. It’s also verifying job listings and company pages.

LinkedIn’s introduction of verification came after X and Meta began offering verification badges to subscribers, per the report. Unlike LinkedIn, those social media companies require users to get a paid subscription to get verified.

The company has been combating fake accounts for years and takes down 99% of the fake ones before they are seen by users, according to the report.

LinkedIn said in a February press release that it had been rolling out a range of free verification options over the previous year.

“Having signals of authenticity like verifications can help build trust while bringing opportunity,” the company said in the release. “On average, verified members get 60 percent more profile views, 50 percent more comments and reactions on their posts, and 30 percent more connection requests.”

It was reported in October 2022 that LinkedIn was facing a flood of fake profiles that paired AI-generated profile photos with text from legitimate accounts.

In February 2023, it was reported that the platform had seen a rash of recruitment scams targeting remote workers and jobless tech employees.