Why Aren’t We Talking About LinkedIn?

>“You talk on LinkedIn the same way you talk in the office,” said Dan Roth, LinkedIn’s editor in chief. “There are certain boundaries around what is acceptable.”

That is pretty much it. As for the rest of the article it just elaborates on that and I'm not sure I understand what the article is asking.

Maybe I missed it in the article but ... why should we be talking about LinkedIn relative to the other platforms? It is just a site with very a specific use case that isn't what the other sites do.

There's also some insinuation that LinkedIn is some super corporate friendly place. Maybe it is but you know what, AS A USER (not a corporation) I also DO NOT WANT LinkedIn to be Facebook. It might seem corporate friendly, but I'm willing to bet most users want things the way they are as far as not being Facebook as well.

Side note: I really hate questions in titles like this. It's like some attention begging non specific "oh woe is me" social media post. Just tell me what exactly the topic is.

I absolutely am on LinkedIn. My only accounts online are HN and LinkedIn. While I agree that it has excessive recruiter spam, I politely respond to every single one of them, telling them where my career is, and what I would need to move. It only takes a minute to do so, and builds a network. Admittedly, most cannot meet my needs, but I have connections to almost every company in my area, so if I ever do need to move, it is not difficult to get rolling. I have found every single job I've held since 2007 from LinkedIn (Admittedly, that is only 3.)

But I don't talk on LinkedIn. I don't 'like' anything, I don't engage with any posts. I'd wager that 90% of what I see on the feeds is just marketing blurbs from my connections' employers. It isn't meaningful to me, so I mostly ignore it.

For me, LinkedIn is a great place to hold my resume, maintain connections to recruiters and former co-workers... and that is it.

I hardly look at LinkedIn. Why?

Two reasons:

- I don't need another Facebook

- I get so much connection SPAM from LinkedIn that I consider LinkedIn one of the biggest cesspools on the internet. (Mostly recruiters who I've never worked with trying to connect, but sometimes people trying to connect as a way to promote their business.)

If they (LinkedIn) better policed connection SPAM, I'd use it. Maybe I'm in the minority; but constantly getting connection requests from people who I don't know is a major turnoff to me.

That being said, IMO, the observation that LinkedIn has a good tone to its conversations makes it an attractive alternative to platforms like Facebook where the tone turns toxic.

Linkedin is a platform that seemingly no one except recruiters and "entrepreneurs" actually use as a social network. Linkedin is a great resource when used as a kind of living resume, but it falls pretty flat as a social network because it doesn't really fill any niche that other social media platforms don't.

That said, there is definitely a slimy underbelly of Linkedin that's filled with narcissists and braggadocios who spin self-aggrandizing tall tales. They're mostly harmless, but I could imagine it devolving into something more toxic if it's left unchecked, the way that many other social media platforms have.

There's a great twitter account @StateOfLinkedin that catalogs the most ridiculous of the blow-hards that's pretty entertaining

No one is talking about LinkedIn because nobody yet looked on the integration of LinkedIn with the Office suite and the privacy implications.

No one is talking about LinkedIn because it's boring. So boring that most people won't open it except when they need to. The conversations are also boring. The most banal as well as the nearly outrageous posts receive the same polite stream of likes and bland congrats comments. No one ever will say anything of merit.

No one is talking about LinkedIn because it isn't really a social network, it is mainly a tool for finding jobs/employees and for business marketing.

Over the last 10 years I've got all my jobs thanks to LinkedIn, 2 times through random recruiters, 1 time on my own by looking at jobs. I also receive a lot of appealing offers from people working directly for companies that are hiring (usually startups with 20-100 employees).

I honestly don't understand all the hate on HN. Maybe LinkedIn became useless in the Silicon Valley (I saw a girl from SF the other day on Twitter, a "tech influencer", saying Twitter was the new LinkedIn), or in the US in general (?), but it's still really useful in the rest of the world to find a new job.

I don't use it at all for reading posts and comments tho.

I remember a few years ago we used to talk a lot about LinkedIn, mostly negative things. How scummy they were, how they tried to trick you into entering your gmail password to spam your contacts. LinkedIn definitely wasn't "controversy free".

I don't know about other people, but I'm an IT professional and mostly gave up on LinkedIn. I get the occasional contact from recruiters, but I almost never actively check the website. I classify most of LinkedIn's notifications as spam/noise.

I hate linkedIn and will leave it the minute it is no longer required for my professional work. It wouldn't surprise me if others feel the same.

1. My linkedIn connections include hundreds or possibly even thousands of people I have definitely never opted in to linking with. I don't know where they came from but I remove them at a rate of at least 10 or 20 per day and never seem to run out.

2. LinkedIn suggests connections derived from underlying data that are really scary from a privacy point of view. Eg for a while it kept recommending I connect with a person who I have literally no digital connection with whatsoever, no connections in common etc and the only way they could connect us is that we used to live at the same physical address. So it knows my address history and his.

3. I wish I could just automatically unconnect with anyone who reshares motivational posts by Oleg Vishnepolsky. This guys posts drive me absolutely crazy but the trite nonsense keeps infecting my feed because someone will reshare his thoughts about what makes a good boss or whatever. Just no more Oleg Vishnepolsky.

4. I have definitely seen the fake profile catfish thing attempted on LinkedIn. Presumably other forms of scams that have infested other social media are also growing.

IMO LinkedIn is one of the more compelling online social networks for two reasons: 1.) The platform’s incentives are well aligned with the user’s incentives. The platform makes money if recruiters can make money by offering jobs to users.

You could argue that recruiter spam is a problem but it would then be a problem for the product and the users. Facebook on the other hand has much less incentive to stop selling ads at the user’s detriment.

2.) It facilitates social interactions that are not necessarily possible IRL. You can reach out to people of interest even if you don’t know them personally. The formality means that we can start conversations with some degree of formality.

LinkedIn needs to work on pervasive phishing and identity theft. I recently found out about an account that copied my profile photo, name, and CV information and used that to connect to 500+ people at my company and elsewhere, using my reputation to pitch people on some blockchain diamond Ponzi scheme. The account has been shut down, but I have no idea if the connections have been warned that this was a fake account trying to scam them, who the account had connected to, and if anyone was victimized. Speaking with coworkers, these kinds of scams are common. It doesn't seem like there is even a basic automated check during user signup to see if the account is impersonating someone else who is already in the system.

I've long deleted my Facebook account. Tried LinkedIn recently, thinking it won't suck much time and will be a bit more privacy respecting than Facebook and the like--but boy was I wrong. I found LinkedIn more aggressively attention and details grabbing. I felt that it nags us to comment on others post and update our profiles recently. The e-mail notification frequency was so high that I thought to delete the account right away but then found out that we can turn it off selectively. I don't know the plight of Facebook now but it shows us even more reasons to glue to our profile/upgrade to the premium plan like "You've been searched X times this week". The more data and attention they get, more can they make from premium accounts. It's no better from Facebook and such from these two perspectives(attention and privacy).

I really don't want to create an account on LinkedIn, but recruiters seem to want it, and I'd like more leads to be picky about, as I wrap up my consulting business.

I tried the HN monthly jobs post... and some startup emailed me to say they'd scraped my info off HN, and created some kind of resume presence for me on their site. (Dear startup person, if I wanted to be on a creepy resume site, I'd be on the one that recruiters actually use.)

I deleted my linkedin account couple of years ago.

My main reason for that has been how it is used in doxxing people. After returning to employment after spending a decade being my own boss, I realized that if you have opinion on the internet and no matter how careful you are about expressing it, people are always going to be mad at you for it. And they will do everything in their power to make it uncomfortable for you to keep expressing your opinions. And telling your employer that you have some opinion that they dont agree with is a low hanging fruit.

Hope linkedin introduces better profile visibility controls, where my public profile has extremely or essentially no information. And visibility of private profile can be tuned to my own comfort levels.

I am a developer and I also maintain a blog. I share my new blog posts on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Medium. Based on my analytics I found love from Twitter and Facebook(shared by others) and Medium but hardly any good feedback/shares from LinkedIn. I kind of got surprised because I was thinking that there are more professionals on LinkedIn than FB or Twitter.

I have stopped sharing there now, hardly share.

Personally, I don’t talk about LinkedIn because I assume if I say its name aloud all of my acquaintances will be cursed with a lifetime of spam.

LinkedIn is the worst content experience of all available social networks, and that's the trade-off here. It's stricter social boundaries, but as the context has shifted to "social selling", it's more of a vapid marketeering platform than genuine thoughtful exchanges. But hey, at least it's less toxic?

Does anyone really use LinkedIn for anything else than updating their job experience and replying to (or ignoring) messages from recruiters?

I'm using LinkedIn to stay in touch with a few people network-wise and avoid littering them with too personal information (as on Facebook, Instagram, whatever.)

It would be pretty cool, but they do exactly the same mistake as Facebook. Their timeline does not provide useful information. If you follow a company (because /sometimes/ you want to see what's going on, their posts are as important as the ones from your network. If you see a post from one of your contacts, hit refresh and it is gone.

I recently did my first own post on LinkedIn. Despite discussion from my network, LinkedIn thought it's not important for my timeline.

2010: Opened an a/c on FaceBook, closed it by that year end.

2011: Opened an a/c on LinkedIn with colleagues, soon Managers posted recommendations on request. Left it defunct there, stop updating profile since.

I always argued team-bonding happens at office during actual office work.

LinkedIn might help if you're between jobs, but then so does job-sites.

This is an ad for linkedin and thus a marketing effort on behalf of microsoft. It's not meant to be a serious platform for people to use - it's meant to be a product. I've been on linkedin for a few years and it's only been a waste of time despite plenty of interactions.

It's nice it's not being used to undermine democracy. But honestly I'm surprised so few have been put off by the astoundingly aggressive dark patterns the site uses, as I was bombarded with them when going through the sign up flow years ago.

I certainly would not provide personal information to any site behaving that way let alone my professional information and contacts. Just the policy of using my name to spam advertisements to everyone in my life, including serious people, is beyond the pale. I'm surprised that alone does not put more people off.

And when these issues are brought up, the only rejoinder I have ever heard is that hidden somewhere is a link to a vast terms of service document. This of course only confirms the companies comfort with the behavior. And when posted by linkedin users, only serves to tell me the attitude of potential coworkers and employers using the site.

I am honestly astounded that it is so widely used: are there so many people that assume this level of dishonesty is innate to the work environment? Do people feel they must use it regardless in order to survive professionally? Because it's hard to imagine people join enthusiastically or what benefit could compensate for a level of behavior no one would tolerate elsewhere.

This is actually more interesting of a question than it seems on the surface. I think it's weird when people post on linkedin, and am trying to figure out why.

On most social networks, I think there's a surface reason why people are "supposed" to post that makes it not weird. I'm just chatting with friends. I'm engaging with my community. But the emotional reason people post is to influence people to think like they do ("I want people to see me as a thought leader"/"This person is wrong") or to make people see how great you are ("Look at this cute cafe I went to in Paris"). It's a hunt for validation.

On linkedin, people post for the same reasons, but it's not hidden behind a supposed surface reason. You post on linkedin to make yourself look like a better person to pay for stuff. It's like how on a resume you really ought to brag, but you shouldn't with friends.

I closed my LI account last year as I don't derive any benefit from it and was irked by the constant Social Network -like prods it gave me.

32 days later - 2 days after they say they'll permanently delete your details - I found myself having to sign up for it again as someone in Asia had decided to promote themselves as a director in my business. The only way I could get him booted off was by joining up again so I could prove who I was (no such proof required for my apparent boss..).

The odd thing was, it still had quite a lot of my details kept on file, despite having suggested they'd all be deleted.

Now I just ignore its regular emails, including the 10 desperate pleas I've had this year asking if I know someone I once interviewed with about 18 years ago and who evidently still has my email in their address book.

For someone who's terrible at remembering people, LinkedIn is a great extended addressbook for "I vaguely remember your name, have we actually met, only emailed, or did I just indirectly hear about you" ?

LinkedIn is the most utilitarian of the social networks because it’s purpose is to be so. However, LinkedIn has squandered some of its advantages if you ask me, believe it or not I find LinkedIn to be the most promotional of the social networks I frequent, and among the most curated.

It still has great value, I’ve been able to lean on my shallow LI network for job opportunities and interviews, and it’s a great research tool when scoping out new careers. But I’ll never go on LI to “waste time”, all in all, maybe that’s the best part of it.

LinkedIn is like a polite Facebook. I feel like LinkedIn is serious enough to keep bored people away. It is like comparing the bar around the corner to the corporate cafeteria.

People are talking about LinkedIn.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19590585

The LinkedIn advertising product is "interesting" to me based off of my perception of LinkedIn. If the ads are displayed on LinkedIn, I feel likely that the target audiences are:

1. Recruiters

2. People looking to be recruited

3. Sales trying to find out more about a company

So, why would B2B advertising work? If there is a 4th, which is a buyer looking to buy something. But for many industries (tech in particular rarely has job description buyers) this seems to be a strange way to market.

Ok,without diving too deep into this,it seems people commenting on this much like the public at large are assuming what you "talk" on the platform or what information you provide is all or most of what they're collecting and correllating.

I disagree with that assumption, what information you provide explicitly will be used in conjuction with infromation you don't explicitly provide. This builds a somewhat precise trail of information to which you have little privy to. Not only that,people who don't use the platform are also targeted as a result of you referncing them on the platform. ML inference aside,a lot is and could be done with what fingerprinting and implicit data collection being done

I believe linkedin scores worse than even facebook for the amount of data they mine and collect. Linkedin,unlike facebook is in a position to shape and impact people's careers and livelihoods so this should not be treated as a minor problem.

This is also why downloading the data google,facebook and the like collect from you means little. I would like to see what correlations and derivations they've presumed based on that dataset!

The information that LinkedIn has about me isn't something I care to keep private, i.e. my accomplishments. I don't share any personal information on LinkedIn, and LinkedIn doesn't really ask for any, other than maybe email and phone, but they are hardly important to the overall functionality. I got my most recent job through LinkedIn.

Maybe the lesson is that social media works well when focused on particular topics?

I've just noticed when I join specific subreddits that are more oriented around a specific hobby, the conversations never get political and tend to be mostly civil. This would be things like a specific video game, woodworking, Kotlin, etc. But if I go some place more "regional" where things can get political, like a city, boom - it goes off the rails really quickly, and requires a ton of moderation.

It just seems like LinkedIn is naturally oriented to talking about specific topics that don't get political. Thus, there's probably a fraction of the potential abuse.

I'm not sure there's anything specifically about LinkedIn that's particularly great. I find it mostly trash. It's just not political trash, so isn't such an easy place to manipulate people.

Isn't it obvious? Nobody posts anything except the most anodyne corporate-friendly pabulum to LinkedIn.

I constantly request connection with other engineers and entrepreneurs in my city who get automatically suggested to me by LinkedIn. I pick those who have at least a few years of work experience. Every now and then some posts of these new connections appear on my feed and I learn a few things what moves those people. Occasionally I even personally meet fellow engineers and founders which were kind enough to reply to me. These meetings over lunch or dinner were really inspiring and I learned a lot from them.

If you happen to be a software engineer or tech founder in Berlin, please connect with me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larsalexanderblumberg/

Controversial opinion: LinkedIn is a useful tool for networking, market research, and recruitment. If you don’t need it for those right now, I recommend maintaining it anyway and actively expanding your network. It’ll pay off down the line if/when you need to do the above.

I do not have a LinkedIn profile because I've run into issue with doxxing in the past. Limiting the availability of my personal information online has always seemed like a safer bet. However, after reading through a lot of comments, there does seem to be a good amount of support for LinkedIn.

Aside from the social spam and fake recruiter pestering, can anyone speak to the value of it? There are several comments referring to multiple jobs they've received because of it. Though I have a good job now, it seems more and more that you need an online presence to land programming jobs. I'm trying to gauge whether delving into that is worth the risk of making the information available again.

About 4 years ago I actively went through all my connections and only kepted the people I could see myself working with again.

I went from 350 connections to about 80. My feed became clear as a result. I also removed all the recruiters which found there way in.

It can also pose a security risk. People are pretty quick to list the tech products they work with (including security products). It's a useful source for info gathering during a penetration test.

LinkedIn is really bad at having a decent discussion. There is a limit to the comment length. It’s really hard to keep track of discussion.

I find my feed relevant but the mobile experience and predictability of the timeline needs some work, imo. I’d love to have some discovery options but my timeline should be predictable.

This LinkedIn who is aggressively against crawler but have broken crawlers who regular ddos some random websites?

I would say that LinkedIn have had their share of controversies ranging from when they scraped their users contact lists on popular email vendors (gmail, hotmail etc), their beginnings with straight out spam marketing, the security breaches, the terrible business practices etc.

LinkedIn accounts aren't quite as disposable as other social media accounts. NextDoor is similar in that regard, and while it is definitely a bit more rowdy than LinkedIn it does seem more measured and self-controlled than Twitter/Facebook/etc.

LinkedIn is a place where I can have my professional profile. That is pretty much it for me. I have tried to engage otherwise on there but it is filled with spam, recruiters and other egocentric entrepreneurs and marketing people who are trying way too hard.

I have deleted my LinkedIn because of constant spam, pointless contact requests, fake notifications and shady activities like that. Some people have probably taken advantage of the networking there but I found it mostly annoying so I got rid of it.

LinkedIn is like the Facebook for corporate, and it's a crappy service IMO

Sometimes people in my LinkedIn network share a post by a celebrity I despise. Can I avoid to see that while still seeing my contact's other posts?

Why is this article getting upvotes? It says almost nothing, certainly very little interesting or actually useful

I can't even talk (post) on LinkedIn using an Android phone on their website. Many of my keystrokes don't even register and they keep pushing that native app like a street corner drug dealer. This has been the case for years. It leaves me to believe the website has been purposely handicapped so that the native app becomes more attractive.

I've never signed up for LinkedIn. What am I missing out on?

LinkedIn was the first #delete for me.

Has anyone else noticed that the nytimes headlines are very click-baity?

I like linkedIn tbh. It's a good way to talk to recruiters, and if you don't want to you can just ignore them. The feed is a cesspool of corporate propaganda and self aggrandizement, but so what? Just ignore it.

I guess I don't think that linkedIn is as much of a problem as other social networks because it's just not addictive in the same way as Facebook et al. is.

Because LinkedIn does exactly what it's supposed to do, and hasn't crossed any lines that we know about?

There, wrote your entire article for you.

There was a comment or link I read on here several years ago that I think best defines LinkedIn - paraphrasing:

A trading card game played by white males where the aim is to amass as many connections as possible

Honestly, to the people I don’t know who add me with no note, or the people who add with a generic ‘I am looking to expand my professional network’, or even more generic, ‘I see we have connections in common’ - why!?