In a world of fake news and social media manipulation where influential people such as politicians and even presidents can incite violence and hatred. Is it OK to censor content on LinkedIn?

This subject has come to the fore with the recent issues surrounding the black lives matter movement and the numerous posts that have appeared on Linkedin, it also coincided with a video that I saw on LinkedIn that I felt was borderline. This video was allegedly ‘docked’ but still published on the platform suggesting that as well as full censorship, there appears to a secondary level that is decided by LinkedIn employees. So where is the line and who decides this?

But first…

Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

LinkedIn Staffers Go All-Lives-Matter During ‘Dumpster Fire’ Meeting on Racism

Yesterday’s Town Hall – Ryan Roslansky’s email

Jane Wong reveals a new ‘Current Status’ feature for profiles which appears to be a short-term or temporary headline.

LinkedIn Engineering article confirms that notifications are filtered for the most-engaged users. Apparently this ‘improves’ our experience!

Censorship

LinkedIn made a political decision! Politicians will be blocked

Are Marginalized Communities Being Censored Online?

This is the video Shay put out about her guns video being published but with restricted distribution.

If you want to see the guns video that I found offensive then she puts a link to it in the comments. The Mike Winnet video exposing what the 10x Cardone product is all about is here

I believe some level of censorship is necessary on LinkedIn but reducing the distribution of a post, based on the opinion of a few individuals, seems wrong to me. Either publish it or ban it…nothing in between. What do you think?

I also discussed a post sent in by Paul Copcutt. That post has since been taken down…either by LinkedIn or by the author himself (I’ve sent a message to the author to confirm but he hasn’t replied). Paul asked some interesting questions;

– Should politics, even if it’s on such a highly visible subject like this one, be on LinkedIn? – there are definitely at least two very strong camps for and against as you will see in the comments stream

My view is that politics should generally be avoided on LinkedIn but occasionally a subject so important and relevant to business and employment comes up that is hard to ignore, such as Black lives matter. I shared a story this week on LinkedIn relevant to racism and white privilege, it happened to me a long time ago and I felt that by sharing the story it might help others understand what it’s like to be black and feel the impact of white privilege – this is highly relevant to business and my audience on LinkedIn and it felt important to me to share it.

– Is it ok for people to be tagging someone for an opposing comment with their employer and in some cases the company they partner with?

Whilst the post in question here has since been taken down, the author has posted a comment on another post in relation to this question

This is a tricky one. Tagging this persons’ employer and their main customer Cisco seems harsh but then again he has posted this comment publicly for anyone to see so maybe it’s fair game. This is different from posting screenshots of provate messages although I’ve always thought that was a good idea for those common sexual harassment messages that seem to occur all the time.

– Do employers have the ‘right’ to monitor someone’s LinkedIn posts any more than they do for FB, Twitter etc?

To me the question of ‘having a right’ to do this is null and void..they will do it anyway so it’s the duty of any employee to comment and post with this in mind. What do you think?

I love this post. We’ve seen much higher stats on post of the week but this one qualifies with approaching 200 reactions and over 75 comments. The message is important and thought-provoking all delivered with a brilliant personal story. The structure is good as the first 5 (3 with gaps) leads the reader into the story so they have to click on ‘see more’. It’s also long so it allows for plenty of dwell time and it finishes with a question.

That’s it for next week, no episode next week but I will be back in July.

Until then, take care and stay safe.