LinkedIn scraped user data for training before updating its terms of service | Hacker News Reader

LinkedIn scraped user data for training before updating its terms of service

techcrunch.com

36 pointsmfiguiere14 comments

LinkedIn is a cesspool of a 'social media'... Just like Facebook, and Twitter.

Ostensibly, LI user experience was best before it purchased that startup Pulse... since then, LI has taken a hard turn towards becoming a social media, versus its initial vision of work-focused network. And the results show, and how!

Terrible user experience, cringe-worthy posts, SEO-focused posts, click-baity writing, and on and on and on. And now AI-generated crap all over. To be consumed by AI. It's become completely useless and has ruined a perfectly useful utility.

I'm glad I deleted my FB and Twttr accounts... only LI remains. I've resigned to using LI... but I think I'm done with these site's shenanigans.

Would love to hear if there are others who feel the same? And/or recommendations for alternatives.

==> Any LinkedIn PMs want to discuss their user experience stories? Feel free to reach out to me. I'm happy to give them an earful.

You should figure out how to covertly poison their AI content. I'm sure there's someone with a large enough network that you could setup the AI equivalent of a zip bomb.

I would...IFF I cared about spending any time on LI

My whole plan is to get off of LI and get out. No point trying to swim in that cesspool

I mean, LinkedIn content quality is awful. It's probably already self-poisoned. Any AI built on their content will be a horrible mix of feel good, motivational and bullshit stories.

I've deleted Facebook long ago. I can't understand how Twitter works: 140 characters is too short to express any meaningful opinion, and when I post something, I get close to 0 views. My feed (carefully curated with a list of devs/tech-related sources) is increasingly filled with engagement/click-bait/drama posts like "who else likes to drink coffee while coding?" I also can't use it effectively for my open-source project/company. With fewer than 500 followers, the number of interactions is null. I maintain a presence just to avoid leaving a void. It's probably a full-time job, but not one I'm willing to take on, and it feels like 100% bullshit most of the time.

The only platform where I can have more meaningful interactions for my company is LinkedIn. I can easily react to a post, gain some followers, or make connections. However, every time I scroll through the feed, I'm baffled by the amount of garbage posted there: all these fake stories about how a pigeon taught someone a lesson on finding product-market fit...

So, personally, I'm done with any of these platforms, but for a company, I would say LinkedIn still has some merit. Maybe also because it's an all in one: connect with people, post company's updates, recruit, create events, etc. As for alternatives, I know none.

Quick link for turning off your data usage..

https://www.linkedin.com/mypreferences/d/settings/data-for-a...

Link not working, please elaborate

Go into your LinkedIn profile settings under "Data & Privacy". The controls for turning off data sharing, including for AI training, are there.

Some people in the other thread are saying the link doesn't work in EU. Maybe they haven't rolled out the setting globally yet?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41585120

Goodness, I had no idea. Thanks for sharing that link. Clicked and disabled straightaway.

> To opt out of LinkedIn’s data scraping, head to the “Data Privacy” section of the LinkedIn settings menu on desktop, click “Data for Generative AI improvement,” then toggle off the “Use my data for training content creation AI models” option.

If you turn off the option to use your data will they delete it from their AI models? What an untrustworthy company…

In these times of LLMs being trained on everyones data left and right, this somehow feels like a misdemeanor.

As sleazy as its founder Reid Hoffman https://www.local3news.com/regional-national/tech-billionair...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com