Bot Activity on LinkedIn
AI ‘slop’ is on the rise - as I’m sure you’ve noticed.
I looked into recent figures for bot/automated activity on LinkedIn:
- Bot/fake accounts - somewhere between 15-25%. [So roughly 1 in 5 accounts/comments are garbage - feels about right to me].
- Automated messaging/outreach - around 60%. [Feels like more than that to me…]
- AI generated content - up “somewhere between 75-340% year on year.” [Even though that’s a pretty meaningless stat, it still feels accurate!]
I’m not posting these numbers to be cynical. It’s important to realise that a lot of the loud voices on social media are not real people.
These deliberately divisive voices are distorting our perception of how angry ‘the other side’ is, by pulling us into feedback loops:
- I post or comment.
- You disagree.
- I get angry, and post a reply.
- You get angrier, and reply to my reply.
- We end up in a race to the bottom, to see who can be the angriest.
The fake content and accounts are getting more and more sophisticated.
Be careful who you argue with.
PS If you really want a laugh, look up the numbers for bot activity on Facebook or Twitter/X …