LinkedIn just announced an update to its Professional Community Policies, which dictates what’s allowed and what’s not within your different LinkedIn communications. The updated policies aim to provide more insight into specific elements of in-app engagement because certain people, especially women, have had enough of LinkedIn being used as a hook-up site by overeager users who have ‘simped’ on their profile pictures.
“As part of our updated policies, we’re publishing a set of expanded resources for members to better understand our policies and how we apply them, including detailed examples of content that isn’t allowed and how we handle account restrictions. While harassment, hate speech, and other abusive content has never been allowed on LinkedIn, we’ve added what types of comments and behaviors go against our Professional Community Policies.”
In this updated format, LinkedIn’s new policy overview includes specific sections outlining what’s not allowed in the app, along with links that you can click for more information. Simply follow the links and you’ll be taken to the relevant LinkedIn Help article on that particular item. This also includes a section that shares more specific explainers on what’s not allowed in the app.
The update’s main goal is to provide more direct insight into what you can’t do in the app – with engagement continuing to rise across LinkedIn, it makes sense for LinkedIn to also encounter more interactions that violate these terms. As noted, women are disproportionately targeted by such activity. Last year, a report by CTV Canada found that a lot of female LinkedIn users regularly receive inappropriate messages from men, many of which often reach out to tell them that they find them ‘attractive’. In 2020, Fast Company reported that posts from female users are often targeted with ‘derision, marginalization, and even outright hate’, despite LinkedIn being the more anonymous platform compared to others. Meanwhile, many other women have reported similar advances or attacks by app users.
Note that LinkedIn does have a specific policy against Sexual Innuendos and Unwanted Advances’, which would now cover even more examples that ‘aren’t allowed’. That fact that LinkedIn even had to do this is a little disconcerting, especially if you consider that this has to be the update’s main focus, providing more context around what you can’t do in the app, which is essentially a mere expansion of general workplace etiquette.
The Wrap
It sounds like it should have been a given from the start. All users should be able to engage professionally. Of course, as with any widely used platform or utility, there will always be certain boundaries to break and rules to bend, which LinkedIn aims to clarify.
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