The graduates of Tsinghua went on to the University of Southern California. They all worked at a company in China. I think these are fake.
The number of Tsinghua graduates working at the company wasn't confirmed by SpaceX.
This isn't the first time that Li has noticed that there are fakeLinkedIn accounts. He began to see profiles with less than a few dozen connections and with profile photos that were likely stolen from other websites. Most of the people were of Chinese descent and lived in the US or Canada.
Grace Yuen, a volunteer group that tracks pig-butchering scam, became aware of the phenomenon around the same time. The practice of fake profiles on social media sites and dating sites started in China as early as last year, and has since spread to other countries. They came up with the name "pig butchering" because they compared the process of gaining victims' trust to raising a pig for slaughter.
As China has cracked down on fraudulent online activities, these operations have pivoted to target people outside of China who are of Chinese descent. GASO was founded in July of 2021 by a victim, and now has nearly 70 volunteers on several continents.
These fake accounts have been around for a while on other platforms. According to Yuen, scammers moved to LinkedIn after dating sites tried to stop them.
It's a great way for fraudsters to reach more people. Yuen says, "You might be married and not on the dating sites, but you probably have a professional networking account that you check occasionally."
Common work experience, a shared hometown, and the feeling of living in a foreign country are some of the things that can be used by a scam artist on the professional networking site. The majority of the victims who have reached out to GASO are Chinese immigrants or have Chinese ancestry, which the actors lean on to evoke nostalgia. The fake claims to have graduated from China's top universities, which are difficult to get into, help scam artists.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
