Sarah Spencer
LinkedIn has grown into one of the biggest professional networks online. Over 750 million registered users leverage the platform to network, job search, and attract clients to their businesses by posting interesting articles and engaging content.
Unfortunately, plagiarism on the site is an ongoing problem. The pressure to produce regular content can lead some people to plagiarize, while others want to make themselves appear more knowledgeable and experienced so they’re more attractive to potential employers and clients.
Types of Plagiarism
Three general types of plagiarism occur on LinkedIn.
- Profile Plagiarism: This type of plagiarism can range from someone lifting phrases or sentences from a profile to copying and pasting the entire thing.
- Work Experience Plagiarism: Some users will copy someone else’s work experience and career information into their profiles, either to compensate for their lack of experience or punch up their credentials.
- Article Plagiarism: This happens when someone posts a story or an article to their profile, such as advice about how to close a sale or a networking case study, and someone else posts it to their profile without attribution to the original author.
A good article that has a lot of engagement will often appear in many other profiles shortly after it goes up, which can make it difficult for people to determine who might have been the original author. Searching on the title or a key phrase will bring up the profiles that might contain a copy, and from there it’s a matter of looking at the posting dates to try to determine the original poster.
Ways to Protect Your Profile
LinkedIn is like a massive 24/7 virtual networking event for the hundreds of millions of people using the site and the LinkedIn app. Avoiding plagiarism by not using the site is an option, but it’s not a very attractive one if you’re on a job search or you’re seeking new clients.
There’s no way to completely prevent plagiarism anywhere online, but there are a few things you can do to guard against it.
- Opt-Out of Resume Assistant: LinkedIn’s Resume Assistant can show your work experience as an example to other users while they’re creating their resumes, making it easy for someone to copy and paste your information. You can opt-out in your account’s settings and privacy section.
- Use Specific Details: If your summary and profile are filled with vague terms and generalities, you’re only making it easier for plagiarists to copy from you. The more specific details your summary and articles contain, the harder it will be for someone else to make it work for them.
Have You Been Plagiarized?
Anything you put online, especially on professional networks and social media, can be stolen. In 2017, even the CMO of LinkedIn was plagiarized on LinkedIn. Unless the site puts an automatic plagiarism checker in place, it’s a problem that doesn’t seem likely to go away.
To see if you’ve been plagiarized, find a unique sentence or phrase in your profile or article that other people are unlikely to have in theirs. Copy the phrase or sentence into LinkedIn’s search bar to see if any other profiles come up.
You’ve Been Copied. Now What?
If you’re comfortable reaching out to the individual, look for their contact information and ask them to remove the plagiarized information. A phone call is better than email, if possible. They might remove the content without the need for you to take further action.
If this isn’t an option, you can flag their account by clicking the “More” button on their profile and following the prompts to report the copyright violation. For a copied article, there’s a “Report This” link at the bottom. You may also want to contact LinkedIn to give them the links to your profile and the one that copied yours with a brief explanation.
In some cases, such as an obviously fake profile or copied content that leads back to you, you might opt to do nothing.
Avoiding Plagiarism in Your Work
Much of the plagiarism that occurs on LinkedIn isn’t copying and pasting entire summaries or profiles. People see content they like that happens to fit their experience and goals perfectly, so they “borrow” parts to make their task easier.
It’s acceptable to use the profiles and articles that capture your attention as inspiration, but double-check to make sure you haven’t copied anything, even a single sentence, directly from someone else’s writing.
If you need help creating engaging posts for LinkedIn or other professional networks, you can always hire a writer to help you create content that’s completely unique to you.
