With scammers, US military personnel are some of the most impersonated people in the wild. Many live in the shadows and don’t have accounts on major social media platforms, often because the government warns them about operational security protocols. Why aren’t they removed by the social media platform companies? It’s not as intuitive as you think.
- Social media platforms are better able to flag impersonation and abuse when a legitimate account is present. Otherwise, their algorithms have no baseline of anomalies to flag against. Fake accounts can be reported from real accounts, but without a real account to reference, it’s hard for a system or reviewer to determine what’s real and what’s not. The platform has to take the reporter’s word, which they don’t weigh heavily; hence, the fake accounts remain active.
- Military personnel work in secrecy and do not have a lot of digital presence. Furthermore, retired military personnel lack the staff and support they once had within the US government. With these two factors, we have an impersonation nightmare.
We’ve been dealing with an influx of military impersonations and offer the tips below for creating and managing social media accounts, thereby making impersonations more challenging.
Creating Social Media
Creating social media accounts comes with an array of challenges regarding the emails and phone numbers that need to be used for recovery. Simple advice: make it easy. Reuse the same email addresses and phone numbers, use a password authentication app like Google Authenticator, and use a password manager, preferably 1Password. Ensure 1Password sets up complex passwords, not simple ones. While setting up numerous email accounts, phone numbers, and password combinations across different social media accounts is good operational security, it’s frustrating and creates friction for recovery and resets.
Impersonation Removal Checklist
- Screenshot each fake profile in full (bio, photo, posts, URL) and save them somewhere safe.
- Report each impersonator from your own account on Upwork, Facebook, and LinkedIn (steps below).
- Submit Facebook’s dedicated impersonation form as a second channel.
- Send the URLs to a few trusted friends and ask them to report from their accounts too. Multiple reports speed up review.
- Post from your real accounts to warn your network so no one is deceived in the meantime.
- Keep a simple log: platform, date, fake URL, any reference number returned.
- Re-check Upwork every couple of weeks. Impersonators there often spin up new accounts after takedowns.
Upwork
- Go to the impersonator’s profile.
- Click the (…) options menu on their profile.
- Select Flag as inappropriate.
- Choose the identity or impersonation reason.
- In the description, include a link to your real Upwork profile (or LinkedIn or company site) so the reviewer can compare.
- Attach screenshots and submit.
Upwork’s identity policy specifically covers fake names, profile pictures, and duplicate accounts, which is exactly what’s happening here.
- On a post: tap the three-dot menu, then Report.
- Tap “They are pretending to be someone else.”
- Tap “Me” or find the profile they are pretending to be.
Report from your real Facebook account. Facebook’s systems compare your established account against the fake one, which speeds things up.
- Go to the fake profile.
- Click the three dots or “Options” next to the Message button.
- Select Report, then Something about this profile, then Fake Profile.
- Follow the prompts. It will ask you to confirm the person is pretending to be you.
Also submit Facebook’s dedicated impersonation form. It routes directly to the right team: facebook.com/help/contact/295309487309948.
If you don’t have a Facebook account, that form also has a path for non-users, but you’ll need to upload a government-issued ID.
LinkedIn’s flow is more nested. Don’t be thrown that the final option is “Fake account.” That’s the correct selection for impersonation.
- Go to the impersonator’s profile.
- Click the More icon.
- Click Report or block.
- “What do you want to do?” → Report content on profile.
- “What content on this profile are you reporting?” → Profile information.
- “Why are you reporting…?” → Suspicious, spam, or fake.
- “How is this suspicious, spam, or fake?” → Fake account.
- Submit.
Full instructions: linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1338436.
If the account is still up after a week, escalate via linkedin.com/help/linkedin/solve for human review.
Asking friends to help
Multiple reports from real network connections meaningfully accelerate takedowns. To make it easy for them:
- Send the direct URLs so they don’t have to search.
- Ask them to report from their own logged-in accounts using the steps above.
- Suggest they add a short personal note like “I know [Your Name] personally, and this is not them.”
- Ask them to also search your name on each platform. They may surface fakes you haven’t found.