​My comment was still flagged by the AI that moderates the platform these days as 'harassment'. I received an email from the platform that informed me that my account was restricted because of the comment.

 

I should point out that my doctoral thesis is titled 'Workplace violence as a strategic organisational risk.' I know a bit about violence, and harassment is definitely in the scope of my expertise. I certainly know more about it than anyone working for a social media giant. In no sense was what I wrote in that comment 'harassment'. Or any other comment that I have ever posted there.

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​For clarity, 'harassment' in UK law is considered 'behaviour intended to cause a person alarm or distress. The behaviour must occur on more than one occasion, but it does not have to be the same kind of behaviour on each occasion.'  (Yes, I know that LinkedIn is an American company, but they operate here.)

 

A one-off comment, not directed at any named person, is, therefore, NOT harassment. Unless you are one of the faceless pussies that creates policy for a social media company. If someone is rude or obnoxious to you, and you are rude and obnoxious back in ONE interaction, that is not harassment, either, despite being targeted. That's just fair play, and some people need telling to 'fuck off'. And that is not even what I did in this situation.

 

The suggestion that I might engage in harassment (from said faceless social media company, no less) is ridiculous. (If you want to see some 'harassment', pop my name into Reddit. I attack ideas, behaviours and organisations, not individuals. Not everyone who claims to be 'a security professional' has my level of integrity - or any, for that matter.)

 

LinkedIn (and other social media firms) are making up their own interpretations of legally defined offences for their own purposes. That should be a concern for anyone who cares about freedom of speech. Then they get a moron in IT to automate their bad policies and implement it without testing.

 

Yep. Here's what happened next.

 

To appeal, I need first to perform what the living brain donors at LinkedIn think is a 'security check'. Apparently, choosing which picture is the right way up to 'prove' that I am human is now a 'security' control. This is further evidence that the people that run this platform and design its processes and interactions are complete and utter fucking morons. They know as much about 'security' as they do about 'harassment', clearly.

 

The 'appeal' process is not, by any interpretation, an 'appeal'. There is no opportunity to make a case, provide justification or rationale. There is no context. The 'appeal' is just that they will revisit the comment using the same broken measurement they used in the first place. The AI moderation bot cannot understand nuance, humour or context. That said, I doubt that the chimps who work for LinkedIn are any better, not that it matters. You cannot interact with a human at all. Whose interest is that in, do you think? Is it ironic for a networking platform NOT to have a human department for real customer service? They are hiding, and there must be a reason for it that suits their interests, not ours. I raised 3 separate support requests - with no response to any of them.

 

Something else about the 'appeal' process. There is only one option. Let's say that you made a comment that you realise was a mistake. Perhaps it was too harsh or poorly worded. It gets flagged and you get a restriction for it. Your only option is to 'appeal' the ban, which means that you cannot agree that it was a mistake, take your lumps and get reinstated. The logic chart for this entire process must have been written on toilet paper by a meth head. The lack of other options tell you a lot about the quality of their thought processes.

 

Here's the interesting thing. I received another 'your account is restricted' email, this time for a comment that I had been previously punished for. In that case, someone had been obnoxious and rude to me, and I had responded in kind. I copped another time out on top of the first, unjustified one. One would have assumed that the offending comment would have been removed, but it was still floating around in their system, albeit not publicly. Odd, right?

 

It appeared that I had attracted the attention of the dumbest AI in the world, and I was now stacking bans - for things said, done and previously punished long ago as well as innocuous comments recently.

 

Over a week later, I received yet another notification, and another comment from long ago had been previously identified and punished as a breach - so yet another restriction. We're at four, by this point. It is clear that their system is now paying attention to my content, without context, for whatever is in memory in their broken systems.

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Then, this happened. I was offered a 'second chance' at my account. I took it, clicked to read and agree their T&C and hit the button. The next page told me that I had been permanently banned. Something is very wrong with their IT, which makes me wonder how secure it is...

 

Good. Fuck 'em. Let's talk about it.

 

LinkedIn has been a total waste of time for a long time. It has become a platform for self-obsessed, dishonest and incompetent people to toot their own horns for no purpose. What is worse, many people claim to go there 'to learn' - which will explain why so many industries are heading down the toilet. If you broaden your network, you see it everywhere.

 

• It's shit for job-seeking.

• It's shit for meaningful networking.

• It's shit for sales.

• It's absolutely loaded with bots and scammers.

• You can rip off other people's content, which is NOT against their terms.

• You can brigade other people to attack an individual, also NOT against their terms.

 

What exactly is it good for? It sure isn't mental health. Since my ban, I've been a lot happier.

 

The reaction of the general public to the execution of that health insurance CEO should be nothing compared to a social media executive getting clipped. They represent the true banality of evil - and it is incompetence. They are responsible for more human misery, every day, than every US health insurance CEO who ever lived.

 

Let me explain something. Because we live in the Information Age, we are operating in a knowledge economy. LinkedIn has become the default platform for content marketing - giving away knowledge for free in the hope of getting business, in other words. Anyone with a brain could tell you that if your product is your insight, giving it away for free to people who aren't interested enough in it to pay for it is a bad idea. You devalue yourself and everything you do. And you devalue other people who do what you do as well. All in the name of attention seeking.

 

LinkedIn rewards the people who do this with greater reach and exposure, which encourages them to produce more content for free. The platform makes most of its money from advertising, and if you provide them with free content, you are giving them your value to monetise for themselves. I don't do this, and I stopped a long time ago. Bear in mind that if you use a platform that you don't pay for, YOU are the product. And even, in this case, if you are foolish enough to pay them.

 

They don't care if the information provided on their platform is accurate. It just has to be 'acceptable' and 'positive'. There is no room for dissent. Most of the security 'top voices' are village idiots who I would not trust to secure their trousers with a belt I provided for them. I proved it with The Bitter Pill for 44 weeks. Don't even get me started on how much of the content on the platform is plagiarised.

 

For a platform that is so interested in 'protecting' the users, let's talk about my experience on the other side of that situation. I was routinely sent hate mail and general abuse through their platform. As recently as November, I reported a message and heard nothing back about it. Nothing was done. Before that, I received an obviously racist message (from another Yank in IT, as usual), reported it, and LinkedIn decided that it didn't breach their policies. Work that one out. I also commonly had some IT asshole who would share a post of mine with an attack on me, thereby triggering their mob to brigade me. My inbox would be full for a week following this, and I'd also get widely libelled off-platform. That's not a breach of their policies, either. Nor are the numerous scam messages that I get.

 

The platform cannot be trusted. You cannot trust their motives, their intentions or their competence. You certainly cannot trust their intelligence. The fact that they run a business devoted to human interactions and yet tried to implement an AI tool to write your messages for you says everything about how utterly thick they truly are, and how far from their purpose they have travelled.

 

Doing business on LinkedIn has been getting harder for a while now. When I started the business, I culled my network from over 6000 people to under 300, and it made no difference to my income. That proves the lie in the idea that 'you need to grow your network'. No, you just need a better network with better people in it. A horde of mindless followers seeking distraction is not a business audience. All it will do is distract you from your purpose and drag you down to their level.

 

You may remember a time when you'd regularly see 'this is not Facebook' comments from people who wanted to maintain the purpose and value of the platform. They were widely mocked and vilified until they finally stopped trying, and the result is the LinkedIn we see today. LinkedIn has no interest whatsoever in protecting its own quality - rather like the security industry. Virtue-signalling bullshit, saccharine-loaded emotional manipulation and misinformation - all delivered to rapturous applause from the people who feed on such garbage.

 

I eventually reactivated my X account (another, far worse sewer) just so I could publicly call out Linkedin. They responded immediately (funny that) and opened 'dialogue' with their customer service. A polite gentleman called Shivam then proceeded to copy and paste the same comments to me repeatedly, and ignore everything I said. I persevered and was offered a second chance to reactivate my account. I agreed, and this offer was then revoked -again. It is clear that calling an idiot an idiot is considered bullying (by the idiot) and not a statement of demonstrable fact.

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Here's the fun bit - I am now fighting to get these dickheads to delete all my data. They have no legal basis for retaining it. Let's see how that goes.

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