Aline describes her experience in 2023 of getting permabanned from LinkedIn for several days, until finding a human contract through one of the investors in her startup.
Possible reason for the ban is her content makes mention of LinkedIn in a way that wasn't expressly approved by LinkedIn, and it all happened only after she took their offer to pay $500 to promote the post.
TIL FB isn't the only network to be asking for government-issued IDs all of a sudden.
All companies worth above a trillion should be treated like public agencies. There’s no reason they should have this kind of unchecked power, especially with all the OTHER ways in which they’re anti competitive ALREADY. Including simply existing. Let’s not pretend that their huge cash reserves and ability to copy others is “fair competition”.
I just don't think it's practical to treat a social media site like a public agency. I sympathize greatly with the author reading this story, but anyone who's moderated a public website can tell you it would be completely impossible if your most combative users could escalate to the government and demand you prove why you should be allowed to ban them.
I think large providers would like to say that, but at the scales of cash involved, I think the burden of saying "no we can't be held accountable for what we do, get lost" should be much higher.
If a significant fraction of people are relying on their personal networks to find jobs, even if they're not working in a job where presenting a public face is a key component, then being cut out of large-scale social networking is no longer divorced from your professional life, it's a necessary service.
This is the problem with becoming reliant on large monopolistic companies.
Due to business interests, they become enshittified, and have no incentive to provide you any value.
Social media apps are incentivized to turn you into a zombie who spends every waking second scrolling.
Dating apps are incentivized to keep you single and using their app forever.
You don't need LinkedIn if you get a good job.
If you aren't mindful about this, you will be treated as the compliant commodity you are.
But the truth is you don't need them. The best jobs aren't on LinkedIn, the best friendships or party invites aren't on instagram or facebook, the best romantic partners are not on dating apps, etc.
Doing things in real life pays a massive dividend now, and fewer people than ever before are doing it, because the barriers to the enshittified life are minimal, and the costs are downstream.
There is some truth to your comment but surrendering the interewebs to the enshiftifiers is a recipe for defeat, and I mean, really painful, destructive defeat.
If it wasn't security they'd just pick a different pretext. "Oh you violated some comma in the 1k page eula, we gotta ban you now, can't set a precedent of allowing violations ya know" or some crap like that.
Security, safety, liability, risk, equity, inclusion, god, any word or concept that it is not socially unacceptable to consider anything other than an unalloyed good WILL be used in this way.
This blog post reads to be self aggrandizing and that the author is very entitled. It’s not a government service - habeaus corpus / expectation of fairness do not apply here, full stop. Maybe they should but that’s a very different discussion.
The author seems like they’re repeatedly dunking on LinkedIn for their own vested self interest of promoting their product, and as a result, someone revoked their account. It seems like a pretty obvious TOS violation to shit on the brand of the company’s platform you’re using and although the author couldn’t find a term of service that they’re violating, I’m sure there’s something in there. It’s not a grand mystery - someone at LinkedIn noticed their posting and thought it was wrong for someone to use their platform to shit on the LinkedIn brand.
Golden rule of using a platform - you don’t own what is in there. If you ever threaten the platform even in the slightest way, then they will remove you without a second thought. Again maybe this is unfair but it’s not like this persons rights are being violated.
Finally the way it’s written seems to assume malicious / stupid intent constantly. To me, the people making these systems are potentially colleagues of mine and I do not want to disparage them unless I am totally sure they are doing something reprehensible. It’s disrespectful to smear a whole system just because you don’t like an individual moderation action.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 26.9 ms ] threadPossible reason for the ban is her content makes mention of LinkedIn in a way that wasn't expressly approved by LinkedIn, and it all happened only after she took their offer to pay $500 to promote the post.
TIL FB isn't the only network to be asking for government-issued IDs all of a sudden.
I don't think that's necessarily true.
I think large providers would like to say that, but at the scales of cash involved, I think the burden of saying "no we can't be held accountable for what we do, get lost" should be much higher.
If a significant fraction of people are relying on their personal networks to find jobs, even if they're not working in a job where presenting a public face is a key component, then being cut out of large-scale social networking is no longer divorced from your professional life, it's a necessary service.
Social media apps are incentivized to turn you into a zombie who spends every waking second scrolling.
Dating apps are incentivized to keep you single and using their app forever.
You don't need LinkedIn if you get a good job.
If you aren't mindful about this, you will be treated as the compliant commodity you are.
But the truth is you don't need them. The best jobs aren't on LinkedIn, the best friendships or party invites aren't on instagram or facebook, the best romantic partners are not on dating apps, etc.
Doing things in real life pays a massive dividend now, and fewer people than ever before are doing it, because the barriers to the enshittified life are minimal, and the costs are downstream.
Security, safety, liability, risk, equity, inclusion, god, any word or concept that it is not socially unacceptable to consider anything other than an unalloyed good WILL be used in this way.
The author seems like they’re repeatedly dunking on LinkedIn for their own vested self interest of promoting their product, and as a result, someone revoked their account. It seems like a pretty obvious TOS violation to shit on the brand of the company’s platform you’re using and although the author couldn’t find a term of service that they’re violating, I’m sure there’s something in there. It’s not a grand mystery - someone at LinkedIn noticed their posting and thought it was wrong for someone to use their platform to shit on the LinkedIn brand.
Golden rule of using a platform - you don’t own what is in there. If you ever threaten the platform even in the slightest way, then they will remove you without a second thought. Again maybe this is unfair but it’s not like this persons rights are being violated.
Finally the way it’s written seems to assume malicious / stupid intent constantly. To me, the people making these systems are potentially colleagues of mine and I do not want to disparage them unless I am totally sure they are doing something reprehensible. It’s disrespectful to smear a whole system just because you don’t like an individual moderation action.