Nothing. I just logged on and got hit with a captcha + ID verification. They just said they do it when there is a potential account compromise.

Potentially someone or some bot was spamming login attempts to your account or something? Or actually got in? And their automated tools detected and triggered your account to enter a state where it required ID verif. before login is possible.

Sounds like their appeals process is broken/bugged or they just don't staff it (and auto-close / auto-reject appeals).

Or maybe he then failed the ID verification step because they match your uploaded government photoid to your profile picture. Can't match to a cartoon.

Yep I was gonna say the same. Automated ID verif by comparing facial geometry to the profile pic, if it fails you're toast.

Thing is they should either have an appeals process that works or they should require the ID verif at sign-up (so people discover they can't get by with a fake photo at the start before they invest in the platform and can remake their account). It does sound like fake photo might be against TOS but no one reads TOS?

Sounds like the current system sucks ass. Trust and Safety often underfunded / underthought though nothing surprising.

Yeah, if OP was getting popular (and getting money out of it), the account would have become a juicy target.

And LinkedIn had probably put it in some "extra checks" list for the same reason, thus triggering the ID check.