I work in digital marketing as a Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) so I get my fair share of spam. Wannabe marketers send me offers daily to use their services in an attempt to rank higher in the search engines. Two days ago was no different. I received a notification on Twitter that I had a new follower. I routinely click on the profiles to see who is following me; I have met a lot of great people on Twitter this way.
So I clicked on the Twitter profile for Ryan Stewart and immediately recognized the profile photo was of Ryan Gosling. Within minutes of this “Ryan” following me on Twitter, I received not one but two emails offering Guest Posting service. Gmail was smart enough to mark one of the messages as spam. The other email was delivered to my inbox. “Ryan” wasn’t done and sent me a request to connect on LinkedIn along with an offer to buy Guest Posts. I wish I was done, but “Ryan” sent me a Facebook friend request. This guy really wanted to sell to me.
I reported the email — the one that Gmail was unable to tag as spam — as spam. I reported the profiles to Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Facebook got back to me and let me know that this profile does not violate its TOS. The Facebook account was created on April 2, 2018 — almost six months ago — as that is when the first profile photo was uploaded. I have yet to hear anything from LinkedIn or Twitter.
I am not holding my breath to hear back from LinkedIn. I have reported fake accounts before and I have never seen any action taken. The company I work for has the following fake employees: Mr. Charles Daniels, Joe Knowledge, Don La Due, Robbie Drake, and Sophie Cai. Ms. Cai’s job title is Toothbrush. I reported all of those fake accounts and none of them were ever removed.
Do these platforms not care about spam and abuse? Why have TOS if the platforms refuse to enforce them? I assisted a business owner whose Google My Business listing received a photo of a nude woman. The profile in question posted nude and sexually explicit photos on several Google listings. After reporting the profile all of the photos were removed but Google did not suspend the offending account. It’s as if these platforms care more about their metrics and not their actual customers.