Fake Accounts Threaten LinkedIn's Reputation, Alleges Fraud Complaint

Bangladesh-based websites TopSocial24 and SocialBD24 facilitate “deceptive and inauthentic interactions” through fake LinkedIn accounts for the purpose of misleading the social networking platform’s members, alleged a fraud complaint (docket 5:23-cv-00110) filed by LinkedIn in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose Tuesday. The complaint seeks injunctive relief and damages against TopSocial24, SocialBD24, MD Raju Ahamed, Golam Mostafa and DOES 1-10 for breach of contract, fraud and deceit and intentional interference with contract.

LinkedIn alleged defendants have operated an unlawful business since 2017 “premised on deceiving LinkedIn and its members.” Defendants have created and used over 400,000 fake LinkedIn accounts that have followed “thousands” of companies and members on the platform and generated over 350,000 inauthentic reactions to posts, said the complaint.

Defendants, on their own and through go-betweens, sell “inauthentic engagement” via fake followers, comments, likes and connections that fraudulently bolster the members and companies that buy its services, said the complaint. Their actions violate the LinkedIn user agreement and induce LinkedIn members to breach their user agreements, it said.

The defendants deploy fake accounts to mislead LinkedIn members, alleged the complaint, which helps boost numbers that can make a company a “better prospect for a business opportunity or a job application than a company with few followers.” The fake accounts and fraudulent engagement can “distort engagement data” and “falsify the wisdom of crowds, drawing members’ attention away from valuable content, contacts and services that real people have actually liked or commented on” and toward accounts that have “cheaply purchased fake influence,” it said.

Behavior such as defendants’ “artificial engagement” discourages LinkedIn members from engaging with each other on the network, “which diminishes the value of the LinkedIn network,” the plaintiff said. “If members doubt the authenticity of the interactions they have or observe on LinkedIn, they will be less willing to use the platform to connect with other members or seek economic opportunities,” threatening LinkedIn’s reputation, it said.

LinkedIn’s user agreement prohibits those who use the platform from creating false identities or a profile for anyone other than themselves or to monetize services or data from LinkedIn without the Microsoft company’s consent. TopSocial24’s homepage advertises the opportunity to “Buy LinkedIn Followers,” a screenshot showed. Defendants also have a menu of fake engagement services for customers to buy, including page followers, fake followers and fake connections between members, the complaint said.

Users can deploy the defendants' fake engagement services gradually, “perhaps in the hopes of evading LinkedIn’s technical defenses,” the complaint said. The plaintiff has connected defendants to over 400,000 fake accounts, said the complaint. Despite LinkedIn’s technical measures to restrict most of the fake accounts, the defendants “remain undeterred” and if not stopped will continue to cause “ongoing and irreparable harm” to the company, it said.

The plaintiff seeks an injunction enjoining and restraining the defendants and their employees and agents, during the pendency of the action and after, from accessing or using LinkedIn’s website, servers, systems and data; to require them to identify all the accounts they have used to generate “inauthentic engagement”; and to state their financial gains from the engagement. LinkedIn is seeking statutory, enhanced, punitive and compensatory damages, defendants’ profits, plus costs and attorneys’ fees.