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Why do people make inflammatory posts and comments on LinkedIn?
I go to LinkedIn to find work.
My real name is there. My picture is there. My career history is there.
There are many places on the Internet where I can anonymously post inflammatory opinions without endangering my job, my career, or my reputation in my field.
I kind of feel like that is the situation on for everyone else on LinkedIn too.
So... why do some people post inflammatory opinions about politics and other non-career related subjects on that site?
All risk and for zero gain.
This is why I don't fully buy the "people are terrible to each other online because of anonymity", people are terrible because they're people lol.
And to be fair, there were things like that on Facebook, still stuff like that on Instagram now, even Twitter uses real names.
Oh, I never believed that.
Even in the 90s when email lists were still "The Internet".
I belonged to an email list for activists for a particular cause in my metropolitan area. People used their real names and rubbished other activists who they might want/need to work with someday.
As you mentioned, since then there has been no shortage of people mouthing off on Facebook and losing jobs as a result.
I feel like that was the operating theory in the early days of the internet when everything was largely anonymous and nobody revealed their real life details normally. But if social media like Facebook and Twitter proved anything, it was that it was totally wrong.
I haven't actually seen this idea touted in 10 years now, at least not as much as I did in the mid-2000's when that statement was almost certainly about just 4chan.
Eh. The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory still applies.
I think the anonymous attitude has changed into "behind a keyboard" one.
Tildes does get heated, but everyone just kind of chimes in with a "My dude, calm down" type approach. I've said it and been on the recieving end of it. It works.
On places like Linkedin, Engagement is the name of the game and if you're not calling people 'fuckwits' and the ilk, then you're getting no where. I did a bit of experimentation earlier this year with their algo around different types of content. I write blogs, I did videos and a few other odds and sods that were 'nice' and 'polite' and got a little engagement. But my post that was miffed off at people being on their phones or driving like jackasses? That got HUGE engagement. The algo's that force the types of engagement those sites need are skewed painfully towards anger and fury.
I am down and out when it comes to LinkedIn now. I'm using it for specific purposes, but I'm absolutely avoiding it beyond that. I absolutely revile what Social Media has done to our society.
I agree with your conclusion that algorithms favour angry content, but disagree with how you got there. Your A/B tests are not direct comparisons from the little details you have shared. I am making the assumption here that your more positive content was more niche and related to your field. If this assumption is wrong, please politely correct me. However, complaining about traffic or people on phones is a universal complaint. Therefore, your negative content is more relatable to people than your positive, which allows it to have higher engagement. However, I do agree that algorithms tend to favour negative content, because people do tend to engage with it. An adjacent concept is that there are no three star reviews, only one star and five star reviews. If you are just looking for reviews, a terrible experience is going to drive people to review just as much as an amazing experience, and it is a lot easier to make a terrible experience. Social media is the same, they just want engagement, regardless of the emotion of the engagement.
I've got this message, I did some proper research around it with different topics and emotions on both sides. I'll dig out the stars tomorrow when I'm back on my main machine budski.
But emotive topics anywhere get people engaging. There's little place for rationality and reason in our current algos
Tangential: The GIFT has always bothered me slightly because its name implies the existence of a Lesser Internet Fuckwad Theory.
Is that like "Soup of the day" implies there's some kind of "soup of the night?" (It's Guinness)
I'll be honest, I'm the Lesser Internet Fuckwad. Completely full of shit, a wind up and as subtle as a brick through a windshield. But sometimes factually correct.
Sometimes.
Are you telling me you are merely theoretical?
I think it enables it. It doesnt mean that removing anonymity removes all rudeness. But for some people, they may feel more empowered to be crass if they knew there were almost no consequences involved.
Well to be honest, I don't think those people think that far ahead to begin with lol
Yeah, specifically what you said in mentioning "some people" is key, because there's likely layers to what people are deterred depending on how much cover they get. Some people might be willing to be total assholes in person without any anonymity or shielding, while others might be willing to be total assholes online with their real name attached, but wouldn't do so in person, and others wouldn't do it unless they were anonymous online. Then you have some that will be assholes in person while being anonymous (like some of those extreme right wing groups that wear masks while out protesting and what not).
But I do think the original point made is valid, because I do think it was more widely considered that anonymity online was THE thing that made it happen, but it's just one of several things that could enable different people.
Anonymity is only a small part of it. Feeling consequence-free allows one to be their truest self, and for many people this truth is just an asshole.
The real possibility of consequences is largely irrelevant. The perception of safety is granted by distance, being alone at home, not seeing the recipient's face, survivorship bias (as suffering consequences online often means just suddenly and quietly disappearing; suffering consequences in hiring would just mean not being hired etc.; and few people actually get fired). A sense of anonymity would only make it worse.
It's all monke throwing and watching others throw poo, but not wanting to get hit.
It often feels like the primary reason such as surprisingly small number is terrible IRL is only because most are not entirely certain they won't end up getting punched in the face.
Probably because they discovered that there's payoff: you alienate like 80% of people, but then you make yourself extra appealing to the remaining 20% of people, plus you get lots of attention and visibility.
By posting mild-mannered and inoffensive stuff, you reach few people and get the lukewarm approval of 100–1000 people. By posting something inflammatory, you'll reach a million people, offend 800,000 of them, but you now have 200,000 really interested people. Bam, payoff.
I really don't like it, but that's how human dynamics in networks work.
I can see some high rollers benefiting in the way you described, but not ordinary worker bees looking for their next salaried position.
So, I guess one could say being inflammatory on LinkedIn is a status symbol.
The person who can afford to do it or profit by it is higher up the career food chain.
I think the payoff of the gamble is greater for ordinary worker bees. High rollers already have reach. Ordinary worker bees don't. You can post about a successful technical project and reach your immediate network and some second-degree and a few third-degree contacts and get a few dozen likes. Maybe someone will reach out for a coffee.
Or you post something inflammatory and reach millions of people, all of LinkedIn even. Among those millions of people, it's guaranteed that there are enough people who agree with you and think, "this guy is so right, I think the same exact thing, he's smart, I should reach out to him, we're on the same page" to make it worth it. Suddenly your inbox blows up with thousands of messages asking for coffee, offering projects, and so on.
Also, given how visibility and post ranking is dependent on engagement, and engagement can be positive or negative, it incentivizes these gamblers to be as inflammatory as possible. And that's why you see them in your feed, not the people who make mildly improper posts.
It's kinda like how Trump started as a joke candidate who had no chance of winning. But his ability to engage countless liberals to angrily talk about him generated infinite free publicity and reach so he could find and build his base of support.
I understand what you are saying, but I am not sure I would want to work for a boss who would be impressed by someone troll posting on LinkedIn.
Sure, but that's because you're not a ruthless sociopath.
(Hopefully.)
I generally call bullshit on people in my industry or communities on LinkedIn a lot. I'm not subtle, but a few sarcastic words seem to have got me a bit of a following as a "dude who stands up for the right things"
I have backed off massively from the site in recent months. Mostly because it's fucking exhausting dealing with the nobodies who want to be somebody and will slag off, shit post and generally be a sarcastic mook anytime they engage on there. It's boring now.
As senior leadership, being witty and human actually works really well and actually speaks to how I got my next work gig.
But when they're just vitriolic, racist and snarly? There's no need to tolerate them. Report them and block the accounts, life's too short to argue with pigs already rolling in shit.
As someone linked earlier, Linkedin has just gotten really weird.
I can't say I've understood its appeal ever, but now I just don't get it.
People have been saying stupid things with their full names, to all their family and friends on Facebook for years.
I just don't people really understand what it means that something is shared to a huge audience online the same way as if they were standing in a room where all these people were gathered.
Too often people seem surprised when I say something like "I'm a person and I read what you wrote". They aren't writing a diary; what we publish on social media is real and can reach a huge audience.
In that non-anonymous email list I wrote about I told people what they were doing was similar in danger to being interviewed on the local news or posting what they wrote on a billboard. It made no difference.
15-16 years ago, I was trying to start my personal blog. I wrote 2 articles every week and ran out for some 18 months. It was a tech blog.
I would read up on how to get more views on my articles. One tip that would often come up was to write something controversial. They said if you create controversy, it will get more views and comments.
The days of personal blogs are long gone, but this tip still works and many people have caught on. A lot of people crave to be popular. Internet gives you an easy way to get that 15 minutes of fame.
Yeah it's engagement. Plain and simple.
I think it has slowly moved from a place to post your work history and find new jobs to also being used as a social media platform. I got my last two jobs thanks to LinkedIn so I'll stay on it but I never post anything besides when I have job openings I'm trying to hire for. The place is a cesspool now.
I've never noticed anything like this. I guess I'd probably unfollow anyone who posts anything inflammatory, or even just unrelated to work or industry groups. That's the point of linked in anyway. I'm not looking for another generic social media site, and anyone who treats linked in that way probably won't be that useful to keep as a professional contact. I'm not interested in working with people who like to start shit on the internet, after all.
The online presence of such sadistic folks has increased so much that it doesn't pay to even bother about that issue these days. Just ignore that, grow up a thick skin and focus on your mission. Even slightly more popularity or attention on netosphere will invite these trolls to your post or content.
Learn from the celebrities, especially the "political activist" kind who have just started! Their timelines are always filled with so much venom and toxicity, and yet they don't seem to be bothered by it. Sometimes they complain about it or even respond to such trolling in order to "spread awareness", but this is one of those problems that isn't going to be solved by spreading awareness. Eventually, they all just ignore it and move on with their lives.