AI spots fake employees… and other digital stories

Ready to delve into the latest news from the marketing sphere? Let’s uncover the hottest digital trends, social news and groundbreaking tech discoveries together… 

LinkedIn Reveals AI Image Detection Research That Catches Fake Profiles

There has been a spike in fake LinkedIn profiles appearing on the platform, with many of those in the affiliate marketing community stating a belief that it’s being driven by websites that want to cheat Google E-A-T trust scores and make their content appear more trustworthy. 

Fake employee accounts have plagued businesses for years, leaving companies powerless to influence the removal of these accounts, but it looks like a solution is on the horizon! 

LinkedIn has devised an ingenious solution to tackle fake profile photos with a remarkable 99% success rate. According to insiders, their new AI image detector has proven incredibly effective. People create fake LinkedIn profiles for various reasons, including boosting their website’s credibility or leveraging Google’s trust signals. 

LinkedIn constantly updates its systems to identify and combat fake profiles, account takeovers, and policy violations. The challenge lies in detecting AI-generated images that are increasingly difficult to spot. LinkedIn’s detection method focuses on identifying “artefacts” unique to fake AI profile images, such as structural differences.

This sets them apart from authentic images that lack these patterns. To demonstrate this, LinkedIn shared a composite photo consisting of 400 fake images and 400 real ones. The composite of fake images reveals striking similarities around the eyes and nose, while the composite of real images appears blurry and distinct from each other. 

By employing AI technology, LinkedIn aims to prove the authenticity and trustworthiness of its platform, making it harder for fake accounts to deceive unsuspecting users.

Social media posting and news consumption trends in 2023!

The annual review of news consumption trends by the Reuters Institute has unveiled fascinating insights that hold significance for social media marketers. Based on extensive responses from almost 100,000 internet users across 52 nations, the report delves into news engagement habits and offers valuable perspectives on algorithmic interference and media bias.

First and foremost, the report highlights a significant shift in news consumption patterns – with social media becoming the primary source of news content, surpassing direct visits to news publisher websites and apps. 

Notably, this trend is particularly prominent among the 24 and under age group in the UK, who rely heavily on social media platforms for news. But with little referral traffic coming from social media, news publishers aren’t benefiting from the shift from this audience demographic. 

Data also indicated a shift in social media usage patterns, with Facebook and Instagram experiencing a decline while TikTok and WhatsApp are on the rise. 

Snapchat and Twitter, on the other hand, remain relatively stable. This shift aligns with the broader trend of private sharing and a decline in public posting. Individuals now prefer sharing content within smaller, intimate groups to evade potential scrutiny and judgement. Factors like reactive angst, fear of division, and the indelible digital footprint have dampened the desire to broadcast personal perspectives on social platforms. 

Google sells domains as part of ongoing cost-cutting efforts…

If you bought a Google Domains URL to create a cool new website, brace yourself for changes. Google is bidding farewell to its Domains business, selling it off to Squarespace for a hefty $180 million. It seems like Google is cutting costs and shifting its focus to more future-oriented endeavours. 

Launched in 2014 but fully released just last year, Google Domains offered the advantage of custom URL identifiers with a vast selection of over 300 domain endings. This allowed for a more personalised web presence, which aligned with Google’s broader offering to enhance your business across its suite of apps and tools. 

It’s being reported that Squarespace will continue to support these domains, but some may lose some value without integration into Google’s sorting systems.

Ultimately, it means you can keep your cool .cafe or .media web address. It just won’t come with the added benefit of being directly tied to Google’s infrastructure. However, the cost of maintaining your domain might increase since Squarespace’s pricing tends to be higher than what was listed on the Google Domains site. 

Whilst novelty URLs no longer hold the same significance in Google’s cost-cutting efforts, Squarespace will have the opportunity to shape the fate of these domains in its own offering!

Get emotional…

We’re all about positive vibes, so when something good happens, we want to shout about it. 

Here’s what’s got us feeling a little emosh this week… 

AI in health tech!

Our client, SpaMedica, a leading provider of eye patient services including cataract surgery, YAG laser capsulotomy and AMD treatment, launched a campaign last year that set out to test the accuracy between human diagnosis and AI diagnosis. 

It was a fascinating experiment that invited optometrists to compete against AI, proving that SpaMedia was ahead of the curve in querying the use of AI in optometry care.  

A year on and enormous leaps in AI have once again raised the question about AI accuracy in healthcare. 

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has announced how Google is using AI to predict cardiovascular issues through an eye scan, potentially revolutionising traditional diagnostic methods. This comes after an algorithm was found to determine an individual’s sex, smoking status and even predict the five-year risk of a heart attack, all from retinal imagery. 

By delving into the intricate details of the eye, doctors can infer crucial information about a person’s overall health, including blood pressure, age, and smoking habits – critical indicators of cardiovascular health. 

It will be interesting to see how AI’s use will be integrated into healthcare and transform how we diagnose and treat life-threatening conditions. 

Campaigns we love: Black Mirror unleashes dystopian reality as fans become billboard stars!

Get ready for a mind-bending twist, Black Mirror fans! In a move straight out of an episode, fans of the hit series were shocked to see their own faces plastered on massive billboards all over the UK. 

This clever Black Mirror campaign tied in with the season’s opening episode, ‘Joan is Awful,’ where the protagonist, Joan, played by the excellent Annie Murphy, discovers her life has become a TV show thanks to the fictional streaming service, Streamberry. 

SPOILER ALERT…By accepting their terms and conditions, Joan unknowingly gives consent for an AI-generated Salma Hayek to portray her. To celebrate the new season, Netflix launched the Streamberry website, allowing users to upload their pictures and create personalised posters for their own ‘…is Awful’ dramas. 

However, like Joan, many fans skimmed over those pesky terms and conditions. And lo and behold, the Black Mirror Twitter account started sharing pictures of billboards featuring the faces of those unsuspecting users. It was a shockingly brilliant move, leaving fans excited and slightly unnerved. 

ThinkEQ’s Head of Brand and Content, Chrissy Kuharcuck, says “I’m a huge fan of dystopian drama and sci-fi, and I think Black Mirror does a fantastic job of creating wild storylines that sail dangerously close to reality. 

“This campaign was a great example of how something as extreme as ‘Joan is Awful’ could happen. We live in a world where devices are tracking our every move, every conversation and every internet search. We’re making it super easy for big tech firms to create an accurate and detailed picture of our lives. 

“The growth of AI has seen the birth of deep fakes, and it’s truly disturbing to see how easy it can be for our identities to be stolen and used to create different personas. 

“This campaign shows how willing we are to create content at the expense of our privacy.”

Maybe it’s time to start reading the terms and conditions…