{"id":312973,"date":"2025-08-02T22:11:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T22:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/312973\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T22:11:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T22:11:14","slug":"linkedin-is-the-fakest-platform-of-them-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/312973\/","title":{"rendered":"LinkedIn is the fakest platform of them all"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cLinkedIn doesn\u2019t know me anymore,\u201d someone complained to me recently. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d I asked. She explained that the platform has replaced the old \u201crecommended jobs\u201d section, which used to show her quite useful job openings based on her previous searches and CV, with an AI search engine that asks you to describe your ideal job in freeform text. The results it brings up aren\u2019t nearly as relevant.<\/p>\n

This is just one of many ways in which the professionals\u2019 social media platform, which has embraced artificial intelligence with ferocious zeal, is being gradually \u201censhittified\u201d, to borrow tech writer Cory Doctorow\u2019s phrase. Each new embrace of AI tools promises to make hiring, job searching, networking and even posting a bit easier or more fruitful. Instead, AI seems to have made the user\u2019s experience more alienating, and to have helped foster a genre of LinkedIn-speak which bears all the hallmarks of the worst AI writing on the internet. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with my opening example\u2014which, to be fair, is in beta testing mode and can be switched off. Instead of the AI assistant being like an intuitive digital servant, pulling up the best jobs based on your ruminations, users are confronted with a new and annoying task: crafting prompts for the AI. But the non-AI search bar worked perfectly well as it was.<\/p>\n

Then there is the AI writing assistant, which is available to users who pay for the platform\u2019s \u00a329.99 per month premium service to help them craft their posts. LinkedIn\u2019s CEO Ryan Roslansky recently admitted<\/a> that users aren\u2019t using the tool as much as he anticipated. It seems that sounding like a human being to your colleagues and clients is put at, well, a premium.<\/p>\n

And then there are the ways in which users are deploying outputs from external AI chatbots on the platform, something with which LinkedIn is struggling to cope. According to the New York Times, the number of job applications submitted via the platform<\/a> increased by 45 per cent in the year to June, now clocking in at an average of 11,000 per minute. Some of that increase is attributable to more people applying for jobs as employment growth tapers, but generative AI tools have undoubtedly contributed. Meanwhile, applicants are using AI to apply for more jobs than they used to, at the expense of quality and suitability. Many employers are now inundated<\/a> with useless CVs.<\/p>\n

Perhaps proactively searching for candidates might yield better results. But can you be sure the people in your search results are real? In 2022, the Stanford Internet Observatory uncovered<\/a> more than 1,000 LinkedIn profiles using photographs created with AI, often with completely made-up names and CVs. Such accounts can be made to spread spam or misinformation, or to generate \u201cleads\u201d for marketing and sales professionals (ie a bot will send you a private message asking if you\u2019re interested in a product or service). LinkedIn subsequently investigated and removed many of the profiles identified by Stanford. But according to the platform\u2019s most recent transparency report<\/a>, the problem has intensified. Administrators had to remove more than 100 million fake accounts in 2024\u201480.6 million at the point of registration, 19.7 million after registration but intercepted proactively by LinkedIn, and 265,700 following user complaints.<\/p>\n

LinkedIn is more than a hiring service these days, however; it\u2019s a social media network with more than a billion users. After many professionals fled Elon Musk\u2019s X due to his divisive politics and platform changes, LinkedIn was one of the places, alongside Bluesky, where many \u00e9migr\u00e9s went.<\/p>\n

There is a good chance the posts in your LinkedIn news feed are also AI-generated, or at least made created with the assistance of a chatbot. AI-detection platform Originality.ai recently found<\/a> that 54 per cent of the long-form LinkedIn posts in an 8,795-post sample were AI-generated or -assisted.<\/p>\n

The platform risks losing users\u2019 trust. LinkedIn\u2019s news feed does not rely on posts being innately interesting\u2014indeed, it arguably relies on this least among social platforms\u2014but on the authority of each user\u2019s voice based on their professional background. People trust the research and development manager of a major publicly listed company more than an anonymous X account with an anime avatar. The platform\u2019s algorithm prioritises well-connected and credentialed people over companies for this reason (and to force firms to cough up for advertising). But if users don\u2019t trust that the posts they are reading contain the original thoughts of their professional connections\u2014or that the author is even a real person\u2014that authority collapses, as does the value of LinkedIn as a social network.<\/p>\n

Last year, James Ball wrote<\/a> in Prospect\u00a0about the Dead Internet Theory\u2014the suspicion that you might be the only human left online in an internet full of bots. As the deluge of AI slop increases exponentially, Ball suggested there is more than a grain of truth to this conspiratorial joke. Today\u2019s internet is filled with fake AI accounts posting and responding to each other. If we are witnessing the slow death of the internet, LinkedIn might just be the frontier, where AI-generated supportive comments (\u201ccongrats on the promotion Greg\u201d) respond to fake posts by company executives who are swamped by fake job applications.\u00a0<\/p>\n

LinkedIn\u2019s executives take a much sunnier view, however. The company\u2019s head of feed relevance, Adam Walkiewicz, responded to headlines about Originality.ai\u2019s research by reiterating that the site encourages\u00a0the proper use of AI to \u201chelp with review of a draft or to beat the blank page problem [i.e., writer\u2019s block]\u201d.<\/p>\n

Roslansky, meanwhile, champions the use of AI at the firm so fervently he admits to using it himself when writing emails to his boss, Microsoft\u2019s CEO Satya Nadella (Microsoft purchased LinkedIn in December 2016 for US$26.2 billion). Roslansky had better be a true believer\u2014since June, Nadella gave him the additional responsibility of leading Microsoft\u2019s \u201cCopilot\u201d AI product, which is integrated into many Microsoft products.\u00a0<\/p>\n

AI positivity is deeply ingrained in LinkedIn\u2019s executive history and culture. Founder Reid Hoffman, who is no longer at the company but remains a Microsoft board member and retains a stake in LinkedIn through his investment firm Greylock Partners, is perhaps the most prominent booster of AI\u2019s \u201cgood side\u201d in public debate. He recently co-wrote a book titled Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future.\u00a0Perhaps not coincidentally, he is heavily invested in various AI companies.<\/p>\n

Hoffman has even created<\/a> an AI \u201ctwin\u201d of himself called ReidAI, which was built on ChatGPT and trained on 20 years of Hoffman\u2019s books, speeches, podcasts and other content. ReidAI recently \u201cpresented\u201d at an industry conference in Silicon Valley. That\u2019s one way to get out of a boring professional development seminar, I suppose. Appearing<\/a> on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the real Reid implored viewers not to prematurely judge chatbots. \u201cI think everybody should try to use AI,\u201d he told a sceptical Colbert, who replied, \u201cPeople should also try heroin!\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Hoffman and his LinkedIn prot\u00e9g\u00e9s, regulators are starting to share Colbert\u2019s cynicism. Last year LinkedIn had to suspend<\/a> its use of UK user data for training its AI models after concerns were raised by the Information Commissioner\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

If LinkedIn\u2019s pivot to AI is causing regulatory headaches and not enthusing its user base, why are its executives still so bullish? They might be ahead of the curve, but this might also be down to their longing for higher growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s revenue growth is healthy (8 per cent) but has slowed since 2023 and remains reliant on premium subscriptions and recruitment products. Many predict that LinkedIn\u2019s future growth lies in advertising. For advertisers to fork out more money to a platform which has historically had much higher \u201ccost-per-click\u201d metrics than its rivals, they need to grab and sustain audience attention. Thus, there has been an algorithm change to reward quality of content over quantity, and a pivot to prioritising videos, which have increased engagement time on other platforms. In the end, every platform is trying to become TikTok.<\/p>\n

The brief promise of the Musk X-odus\u2014that LinkedIn might become a leading forum for public debate\u2014hasn\u2019t been realised. Bluesky has overtaken LinkedIn as the preferred platform for the hip, intellectual and left-leaning. AI might fill some of the gap in terms of content volume, but based on Originality.ai\u2019s research, its engagement is likely to be lower. People are still repelled by telltale signs of fake humanity.<\/p>\n

The sad truth is that on LinkedIn writing which appears automated is a problem even when users aren\u2019t relying on ChatGPT. The professional \u201chustle\u201d culture that has flourished on the platform often feels\u00a0inauthentic and predictable, making it easily mimicable but ultimately unsatisfying, much like AI-generated writing.<\/p>\n

Vapid \u201cthought leadership\u201d from dull corporate drones\u2014sometimes dubbed \u201cLinkedInfluencers\u201d\u2014too often competes for space on the platform with more insightful posts from earnest professionals, and is often prioritised by the algorithm. Meanwhile, users posting about more topical or controversial matters, such as the war in Gaza<\/a> or racism<\/a>, have complained about their posts being disproportionately deprioritised and even censored. And this week, LinkedIn quietly removed a line in its \u201chateful and derogatory content\u201d policy that stated<\/a> the company prohibits the misgendering and \u201cdeadnaming\u201d of transgender individuals. Such curatorial choices reflect the platform\u2019s dual and sometimes conflicting purposes\u2014as a place to find genuinely useful information in your field, and as a place to show off an inflated and sanitised personal brand to prospective employers or clients, for whom political controversy might be a turnoff.<\/p>\n

The tone of writing from LinkedInfluencers is often so formulaic, it\u2019s as if LinkedIn has a house style guide: begin long posts with a quirky anecdote, then over-use line spaces to conjure profundity from essentially mundane details. About halfway in, insert a pivot line relating the story to a vague lesson one can apply to their professional lives: \u201cAnd then it hit me… the qualities of a good dog owner are exactly the same qualities we need among leaders in in-house litigation teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are many examples<\/a> of this format being taken to hilarious extremes. My favourite is from Bryan Shankman, who last year began a post<\/a> like so: \u201cI proposed to my girlfriend this weekend. \ud83d\udc8d Here\u2019s what it taught me about B2B sales…\u201d A close second is Janney Hujic, a former banker at DBS Bank in Singapore, who posted<\/a> about how she bumped into the bank\u2019s ex-chairman Piyush Gupta and shared an inspirational conversation, only for the real Gupta to comment, \u201cSorry to disillusion you. That isn\u2019t me!\u201d These examples are particularly absurd, but they typify a broader sense of inertia with LinkedInfluencers. As Zat Astha wrote<\/a> about Hujic\u2019s post, \u201cthe problem isn\u2019t fakery. It\u2019s how boring, predictable, and polished we\u2019ve all become in order to survive the feed.\u201d<\/p>\n

To see how easily reproducible by AI this dominant genre of post was, I asked ChatGPT to write me a long LinkedIn post relating a non-corporate occurrence to professional life (see below). The result was uncanny. Ask yourself: can you tell the difference between what\u2019s real and fake on LinkedIn?<\/p>\n

Last weekend, while walking through a park after a morning run, I saw a crumpled soda can lying near a bench. Dozens of people had passed by\u2014it wasn’t mine, and technically, it wasn’t “my problem.” But I picked it up and tossed it into a nearby recycling bin.<\/p>\n

It was such a small act. But it stayed with me all day.<\/p>\n

Because it reminded me of something bigger-something I see (and try to embody) in professional life:<\/p>\n

True leaders pick up the trash. Even when no one’s watching. Even when it’s not in their job description.<\/p>\n