I also do not want to be "friends with my grandma or neighbour" on LinkedIn...
One I encountered was a recruiter who I actually liked so I went out of my way to message her and say "I'm just not sure everyone seeing that message feels the same way and on LinkedIn that might not be the best thing to post as far as being a recruiter."
She was all "I'm just being patriotic."
We had a pleasant exchange after that and I don't see her post that stuff anymore.
Normally I wouldn't do that but she struck me as young, naive, not a lot of life experience.... but also genuinely interested in what other people think and I thought it was worth a shot. I was fortunate.
I would strongly suggest you make your own assessment as far as how well that works out as far as people wanting to hear it or not / listening / the results.
Next time you see a comment thread on LinkedIn, look who is responding. In my experience it is overwhelmingly founders and not employees. People that work for others have their speech chilled. People that work with others get benefits from having opinions, and do not have the consequence of income disruption and industry blacklisting.
Likewise, to the degree that your goal at your workplace is career advancement (and again, assuming meritocratic promotion over cronyism), you shouldn’t be having political discourse there, either.
But do note that “political discourse” has a specific meaning here—something is only political discourse if there are multiple potential positions likely to crop up in any discussion amongst arbitrary people in the room. If everyone in the room agrees on all the issues to the point that they think they’re “obvious”, then no political discourse is happening even if a normally-political issue is being discussed, so there is no risk of career impact. For example, discussing attending pride rallies in the break-room of an SF-based company is entirely safe. Hanging a patriotic slogan on the wall of your cubicle in a government organization is entirely safe. Etc.
This effect never applies if you’re posting your thoughts on the public Internet, though. There’s always someone “in the room” who disagrees, when the room contains 7bn people.
But sometimes (often), people do what they want without considering or being aware of social norms or consequences.
If you're aware of social norms and consequences, make whatever decision you want as an informed, consenting adult.
If you're blissfully unaware of social norms and/or consequences, it is tricky (because of its own social norms:P), but people may try to help you be aware of them.
Personally, I would neither want to discuss politics on LinkedIn or care for others to do so. It's not what LinkedIn as a platform is for, as far as I'm concerned. I don't go to my car dealership to get a beer, I don't interrupt the CIO's presentation to discuss the soccer results, and I don't care for politics on LinkedIn - they each have their own domain. But you may do as you choose :).
At work, it's a lot more fluid - in many environments discussing politics at work is "not a good idea" - why start a heated fight with a co-worker on opposite spectrum if you otherwise respect each other and work well? Or unknowingly jeopardize your chances of promotion because your boss vehemently disagrees with your political views? Or, possibly the worst, you yourself subconsciously not promote or develop your team member because you are now biased due to their differing political views? (it's huge hubris to claim "Oh no I wouldn't be impacted like that").
Other places, small startups of like-minded people, it'll naturally be a subject of conversation.
And in between, even at large corporate settings, you may develop friendship with people who are either like-minded, or open to productive interesting discussion.
But overall message is, know your audience, know the social norms, know the consequences. And then do as you please :)
Otherwise, you need to use discretion, especially now that many people are nationally and globally connected. If you're the type who discusses politics loudly in front of the office, you've already reaped the rewards/punishment for doing so, and LinkedIn will magnify both.
Oh, you can - you just had better make sure you have the Right Opinions before you do. If you wonder what the Right Opinions are, browse through LinkedIn and see what's getting "upvoted".
Depending on the industry, her connections, and career goals, that might be a very rational decision. If your professional network or aspirations involve national-security or Federal contracting then posting some patriotic ooh-rah posts is just her virtue signalling her allegiances to those she works with.
The area around me has loads of Federal work, and you see those types of posts all the time from folks in that industry. Similarly, I have contacts in private sector at companies that are really big into social-justice causes. Those folks will post all kinds of work-unrelated content of that variety.
If I see you posting one of those “a great leader...” or any meme/Facebook types post, you’re removed as a connection instantly however. Because I really don’t want my LinkedIn feed to turn into Facebook. That’s not activity though, it’s a matter of what content people share, and I value a lot of activity if it’s interesting.
But maybe I’m alone in this?
I think these people fall into 1 of 2 groups, which explains the "why":
1. They're trying to be a "thought leader" on a particular topic (to get more/better job offers in the future).
2. To grow awareness of a brand.
In a lot of cases they're probably doing more harm than good, but in some cases it is a cheap and easy way to get a lot of attention (which is also why it bothers us, and that is how they're doing harm).
But I really do get a lot of support from having an opinion or posting a perspective on a nuanced topic.
It basically took me coming to terms with not expecting to work for anybody anymore. I am not worried about recruiters and hiring managers taking a dim view of opinions.
But other movers and shakers really do listen, its made it easier to get into rooms, get capital, get acquirers, get legal and the attention of people I want and also didn't know I wanted.
It is a positive feedback loop and I know plenty of employees with opinions are not speaking or liking publicly. Its very similar to following sexy instagram accounts but you don't like or comment anything because your significant other and their friends and potential other mates will take a dim view on what you say. An employer/employee relationship is the same way and describes LinkedIn behavior.
In addition, besides anonymity, people are far worse online because there is no real person they are interacting with. They are interacting with a caricature of a person they've built up in their heads based on a highly limited set of information.
Finally, you lose all sorts of body language, tone, and other cues, that prevent you from actually interacting with someone, and instead has you interacting with your vision of them, which is highly influenced by your emotional state and preconceived notion of what you think they're saying.
I don't think it's reasonable to put the blame on the users. Facebook in particular, creates that caricature in order to increase "engagement".
You will not see a representative sample, much less all, of your friends posts if you use it normally. If two people make one in 20 posts that are outraged, anguished, political, Facebook will probably show them only those of each other, which creates a feedback loop.
People talk about possible future "paperclip maximizer" AIs overwhelming society, but Facebook is essentially doing that right now, only it's "engagement" instead of "paperclips".
Groups are different- though it boggles my mind that LinkedIn missed the opportunity to beat Slack on creating useful professional communities with such a head start...
I don't have a problem with this necessarily; after you have worked a while and have several hundred connections+ it is a great way to keep up with what people are doing, so long as they are posting something substantial (new job, press release, etc) and not reposts of empty quotes about innovation from Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Vishnepolsky, etc.
I usually unfollow rather than disconnect. Disconnecting means I don't want to have anything to do with this person professionally, and you never know when a connection to someone might be useful.
LinkedIn is supposed to be the social network for business. Despite my disappointment with them on a number of levels and my low level of usage as a result, their proposition as a company isn't hard to grasp and I don't understand why it's so difficult for others to get it.
One chap I recently connected with posted every couple of hours. Links to news stories, a load of hashtags and nothing of particular interest.
However, I still want to remain connected to him, so I just unfollowed him.