Every day we work to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. At the heart of this work, we’re building a safe, trusted, and professional community where people feel welcome and respected. Before our next biannual Transparency Report later this year, we’re sharing an early look at actions we took on three categories of content that are not allowed under our Professional Community Policies: misinformation, hate speech, and fake accounts. Between January 1 and June 30, posts, comments and shares on LinkedIn rose 38% compared to the same time period in 2020. While we saw a majority of content that inspired us, we saw a moderate increase in misinformation and hate speech driven by world events, while the number of fake accounts prevented or removed after creation rose slightly. More detail behind the numbers can be found below.
Quarterly Transparency Update (January - June 2021)
Supported more conversations and content. More people than ever are sharing views, opinions, ideas, and experiences about the changing world around us. We've seen more people using LinkedIn to build communities around their everyday professions, from frontline workers, to working parents, and everyone adjusting to a new paradigm where personal and professional blends together. People are also engaging in important conversations about social injustice, race, equity, politics, religion, and more, on our platform. Our teams and technology are at work every day to support the growth of these communities and conversations by helping our platform remain constructive and respectful.
Removed more hateful and derogatory content. With all of the increased dialogue on the platform, we also saw an increase in negative conversations. Hateful and derogatory content rose by almost 34%, for example. We largely attribute this to several polarizing world events, including conflicts in the Middle East and the trial of Derek Chauvin in the United States. We don’t tolerate hateful rhetoric on the platform and will continue investing in our teams of reviewers and technology to help improve its detection and removal.
Removed more fake accounts. The number of fake accounts prevented or removed after creation rose slightly (4.5%). We made improvements in our ability to detect and remove fake accounts that make it onto the platform before members report them. This number rose 23% from roughly 3 million to roughly 3.7 million. We attribute this to continued investment in our fake-detection technology, which is helping to catch fakes proactively before member reports.
Sourced trusted news and information. Misinformation rose by about 24% during this period as compared to prior reporting periods. Election-related events and COVID-19 drove the majority of this content. We removed posts and videos that violated our policy against spreading misinformation. While our teams led this important work, our 75+ editors published trusted news and information about COVID-19/vaccines, elections, and a variety of other important topics to inform our members and to equip them with the facts.
This is the first of more regular quarterly updates alongside our biannual Transparency Reports, aimed at increasing visibility into the content experience on LinkedIn and how we’re keeping our community of over 774 million members safe, trusted, and professional. Our next full biannual Transparency Report is scheduled to publish before the end of 2021, including additional information about the actions we took during this time period.