Follow Up To: LinkedIn Policy Is Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Despite my previous post “LinkedIn Policy Is Guilty Until Proven Innocent” being only three weeks old, it’s already climbed to be the third most viewed post I’ve written to date. I guess the perceived injustice of LinkedIn’s policy on discussion posts and spam touched a nerve with many. It should, if you actively post discussions to groups.

Many people asked me where on LinkedIn’s website they could read about this policy. I tried to find it before I wrote that post and couldn’t. All I had at the time was private correspondence between me and LinkedIn Support, as well as what other have shared (also correspondence).

You can read about other users’ experience with this policy in a LinkedIn forum: http://community.linkedin.com/questions/573/why-are-my-updates-all-submitted-for-review-now.html

While the above link illustrates that users have been impacted by this policy, it’s still just a forum. It’s not something “official” from LinkedIn. Therefore, I’ve decided to share correspondence that I received from LinkedIn, because I feel it’s important to back up my criticism of their policy with something factual.

Correspondence One:

Here’s my polite request to LinkedIn support asking if they could provide me with a URL on their site that specifically talks about this policy:

Correspondence Two:

LinkedIn has a tendency to use canned responses. I guess that’s understandable given the amount of messages they receive. This didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know from their other correspondence. It also didn’t give me a URL, which is all I wanted. Here’s what they had to say:

Correspondence Three:

In a final attempt, I asked them once again for a link or URL they could point me towards which specifically details this new policy. Sadly, they hide behind a generic user agreement and apparently do not address this specific policy on their site.

So at the end of the day, LinkedIn is a free site. You’re not forced to participate. They get to make the rules. If you don’t like them, that’s your problem not theirs.

But, that doesn’t mean I have to be silent about an unfair policy that treats its users as guilty until proven innocent. If you share these feelings, let LinkedIn know how you feel by contacting them directly through their site. You can also help spread the word by sharing this post and the original post this links to. And if you disagree, that’s fine too. You’re still innocent until proven guilty in my eyes. ;-)

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6 thoughts on “Follow Up To: LinkedIn Policy Is Guilty Until Proven Innocent”

Pingback: LinkedIn Policy Is Guilty Until Proven Innocent | Arthur Catalanello Consulting

Arthur,
Note that the community question is now closed. Hmmm, LinkedIn doesn’t like “pile ons”.
However, mine is still open: http://community.linkedin.com/questions/7900/linkedins-moderation-mode-across-all-groups-when-b.html#comment-14655

Note that I am Tweeting about the SWAM policy and warning people to pull out of all groups where they are not closely linked to the group owner, or have a strong feeling that the group owner is very engaged with the group.

I have nine groups and check them several times per day. I’ve had to take quite a few people out of Moderation Mode as the result of this wrong-headed LinkedIn policy.

Note that Google does it right with G+ – you can ban someone from your group. If that person is banned too many times across multiple groups, then the whip is cracked. That’s a reasonable and adult policy, unlike LinkedIn’s SWAM policy.

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Arthur – Thanks for all your work. Your are absolutely right …. the only thing we can all do is to to bring attention as much attention to what is a complete travesty.

I am one of those affected through no fault of my own and what aggravates this situation is that the majority of Group owners will certainly approve your posts – especially if you message them – but few of them have any idea how to change your settings so as to enable you to post again without requiring moderation.

What takes my breath away is LinkedIn’s arrogant attitude to those of us who have helped develop LInkedIn to what they are today. It is the Group owners who they could have notified of what they were doing, but they chose not to. You have to ask yourself is this this new policy is an ill thought out knee-jerk reaction of one youthful ignoramus who has no idea about PR, or is it the action of a company that has gathered some critical mass and has abandoned any path of continual improvement.

As a Group owner that has to continually fight with a very poor and substandard set of tools with which to run my group, and the fact that subgroups are one such example of LinkedIn lack of care and attention to detail, I think it is the latter. And if that’s the case they will have a limited life.

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