Yeah there certainly are those outliers who don't quite get it yet.

One I encountered was a recruiter who I actually liked so I went out of my way to message her and say "I'm just not sure everyone seeing that message feels the same way and on LinkedIn that might not be the best thing to post as far as being a recruiter."

She was all "I'm just being patriotic."

We had a pleasant exchange after that and I don't see her post that stuff anymore.

Normally I wouldn't do that but she struck me as young, naive, not a lot of life experience.... but also genuinely interested in what other people think and I thought it was worth a shot. I was fortunate.

> Normally I wouldn't do that but she struck me as young, naive, not a lot of life experience.... but also genuinely interested in what other people think and I thought it was worth a shot. I was fortunate.

Depending on the industry, her connections, and career goals, that might be a very rational decision. If your professional network or aspirations involve national-security or Federal contracting then posting some patriotic ooh-rah posts is just her virtue signalling her allegiances to those she works with.

The area around me has loads of Federal work, and you see those types of posts all the time from folks in that industry. Similarly, I have contacts in private sector at companies that are really big into social-justice causes. Those folks will post all kinds of work-unrelated content of that variety.

Having worked similar industries...just came here to say I think you're spot-on.

So does that mean I can't ever discuss politics at work? Or on LinkedIn?

It's not about can or cannot in strict sense of the word. In principle, you can do whatever you want.

But sometimes (often), people do what they want without considering or being aware of social norms or consequences.

If you're aware of social norms and consequences, make whatever decision you want as an informed, consenting adult.

If you're blissfully unaware of social norms and/or consequences, it is tricky (because of its own social norms:P), but people may try to help you be aware of them.

Personally, I would neither want to discuss politics on LinkedIn or care for others to do so. It's not what LinkedIn as a platform is for, as far as I'm concerned. I don't go to my car dealership to get a beer, I don't interrupt the CIO's presentation to discuss the soccer results, and I don't care for politics on LinkedIn - they each have their own domain. But you may do as you choose :).

At work, it's a lot more fluid - in many environments discussing politics at work is "not a good idea" - why start a heated fight with a co-worker on opposite spectrum if you otherwise respect each other and work well? Or unknowingly jeopardize your chances of promotion because your boss vehemently disagrees with your political views? Or, possibly the worst, you yourself subconsciously not promote or develop your team member because you are now biased due to their differing political views? (it's huge hubris to claim "Oh no I wouldn't be impacted like that").

Other places, small startups of like-minded people, it'll naturally be a subject of conversation.

And in between, even at large corporate settings, you may develop friendship with people who are either like-minded, or open to productive interesting discussion.

But overall message is, know your audience, know the social norms, know the consequences. And then do as you please :)

You can do whatever you like.

I would strongly suggest you make your own assessment as far as how well that works out as far as people wanting to hear it or not / listening / the results.

> I can't ever discuss politics at work?

Oh, you can - you just had better make sure you have the Right Opinions before you do. If you wonder what the Right Opinions are, browse through LinkedIn and see what's getting "upvoted".

Of course you can, as long as your comfortable with those things affecting your ability to find or keep a job. Proving that you were fired because you support political ideal of your choosing and not "poor performance" is going to be very difficult if the person firing you knows what they're doing.

Someone like a recruiter might want to avoid divisive topics unless they're specifically trying to attract someone from one of those markets.

That's usually a smart idea.

Otherwise, you need to use discretion, especially now that many people are nationally and globally connected. If you're the type who discusses politics loudly in front of the office, you've already reaped the rewards/punishment for doing so, and LinkedIn will magnify both.

LinkedIn is a site built to help people socially-network in a way that optimizes for career advancement. Assuming market capitalism rather than cronyism, political discourse is anathema to career advancement. So, to the degree you’re using LinkedIn for what it’s for, you shouldn’t be discussing politics there.

Likewise, to the degree that your goal at your workplace is career advancement (and again, assuming meritocratic promotion over cronyism), you shouldn’t be having political discourse there, either.

But do note that “political discourse” has a specific meaning here—something is only political discourse if there are multiple potential positions likely to crop up in any discussion amongst arbitrary people in the room. If everyone in the room agrees on all the issues to the point that they think they’re “obvious”, then no political discourse is happening even if a normally-political issue is being discussed, so there is no risk of career impact. For example, discussing attending pride rallies in the break-room of an SF-based company is entirely safe. Hanging a patriotic slogan on the wall of your cubicle in a government organization is entirely safe. Etc.

This effect never applies if you’re posting your thoughts on the public Internet, though. There’s always someone “in the room” who disagrees, when the room contains 7bn people.

You can, but there are consequences for most people.

Next time you see a comment thread on LinkedIn, look who is responding. In my experience it is overwhelmingly founders and not employees. People that work for others have their speech chilled. People that work with others get benefits from having opinions, and do not have the consequence of income disruption and industry blacklisting.

It's can't versus should. Sure, you can discuss politics at work, but should you?

Ideally yes.

why would you want to discuss politics at work?

I don’t think activity is bad on LinkedIn, if it’s relevant. Some of the best articles I’ve read in 2019 haven’t been in places like Medium, Dev.to and all those other “blogs that are mostly just wordy twitter opinion posts” places. It’s been on LinkedIn. I’ve also seen some fairly interesting discussions on things like ageism in the workplace, hiring practices and some such and I’ve seen a lot of people find jobs, make sales or simply share code by reaching out. All that is great in my personal opinion.

If I see you posting one of those “a great leader...” or any meme/Facebook types post, you’re removed as a connection instantly however. Because I really don’t want my LinkedIn feed to turn into Facebook. That’s not activity though, it’s a matter of what content people share, and I value a lot of activity if it’s interesting.

But maybe I’m alone in this?

Ageism in the workplace is definitely an appropriate topic on LinkedIn, because LinkedIn is about work. To me, anything that is not work or business related is crossing the line.

Yup. To me LI is a necessary evil, a online CV. Anything like that is an instant unfollow.

it used to be.. it evolved. Find some people that you admire, and follow them. See what they say. Interact with them. see what you get out of it

I haven’t seen those kinds of conversations on LinkedIn; would you have a moment to share some links?

In my experience, the really good discussions happen in the more specific groups, which for me would be the ones related to c, embedded, etc.

> Why are you cluttering my interface

I think these people fall into 1 of 2 groups, which explains the "why":

1. They're trying to be a "thought leader" on a particular topic (to get more/better job offers in the future).

2. To grow awareness of a brand.

In a lot of cases they're probably doing more harm than good, but in some cases it is a cheap and easy way to get a lot of attention (which is also why it bothers us, and that is how they're doing harm).

I use a lot of discretion when I post on LinkedIn, 100% on brand.

But I really do get a lot of support from having an opinion or posting a perspective on a nuanced topic.

It basically took me coming to terms with not expecting to work for anybody anymore. I am not worried about recruiters and hiring managers taking a dim view of opinions.

But other movers and shakers really do listen, its made it easier to get into rooms, get capital, get acquirers, get legal and the attention of people I want and also didn't know I wanted.

It is a positive feedback loop and I know plenty of employees with opinions are not speaking or liking publicly. Its very similar to following sexy instagram accounts but you don't like or comment anything because your significant other and their friends and potential other mates will take a dim view on what you say. An employer/employee relationship is the same way and describes LinkedIn behavior.

I agree, and I follow a few people who do it well and I get value out of following them. But, my comment about the people doing harm to themselves (or their brand) are the people who are bothersome and are posting what amounts to spam. It doesn't sound like you're in that camp.

When people I am connected to post facebook crap, like political posts, I remove them as a connection. I have no desire to facebook my linkedin. Look at the comment section of most of those posts, and people are no better on LinkedIn than they are on facebook, with very inappropriate language and behavior.

I don't understand this, since wasn't the theory that people act so horrible online partially due to anonymity? Yet some of the worst online behavior I see is on Facebook, where not only is the user's real name and picture attached to the post but family members and friends can see it.

Anonymity plays a part even if youre not anonymous on FB. A lot of (most?) people treat their online worlds as different from the "real world" for some reason, and even though they are not anonymous, they believe that what happens online cannot affect their real day to day life.

In addition, besides anonymity, people are far worse online because there is no real person they are interacting with. They are interacting with a caricature of a person they've built up in their heads based on a highly limited set of information.

Finally, you lose all sorts of body language, tone, and other cues, that prevent you from actually interacting with someone, and instead has you interacting with your vision of them, which is highly influenced by your emotional state and preconceived notion of what you think they're saying.

"They are interacting with a caricature of a person they've built up in their heads based on a highly limited set of information."

I don't think it's reasonable to put the blame on the users. Facebook in particular, creates that caricature in order to increase "engagement".

You will not see a representative sample, much less all, of your friends posts if you use it normally. If two people make one in 20 posts that are outraged, anguished, political, Facebook will probably show them only those of each other, which creates a feedback loop.

People talk about possible future "paperclip maximizer" AIs overwhelming society, but Facebook is essentially doing that right now, only it's "engagement" instead of "paperclips".

Facebook hahas more worse behavior. It's Twitter that constantly gets people doxxes, harassed, and death-threatened based on misinformation.

I've been quite surprised to see in the comments here how many people apparently look at the feed in LinkedIn at all. I sometimes post articles on the topic I'm researching, or company-related promotion ('hey, we were on TV' or 'we're hiring') but I've always assumed that most of my contacts who are technical avoid entering the LinkedIn ecosystem unless they are specifically job-hunting, and even then, wouldn't look at the feed section, due to the amount of dross from people trying to "boost their brand."

Groups are different- though it boggles my mind that LinkedIn missed the opportunity to beat Slack on creating useful professional communities with such a head start...

I have noticed that LinkedIn added a lot of addiction-forming "hooks" in the last year (maybe a little longer?), similar to other social networks. The most prominent among these that "liking" will repost to your connections' timeline.

I don't have a problem with this necessarily; after you have worked a while and have several hundred connections+ it is a great way to keep up with what people are doing, so long as they are posting something substantial (new job, press release, etc) and not reposts of empty quotes about innovation from Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Vishnepolsky, etc.

I usually unfollow rather than disconnect. Disconnecting means I don't want to have anything to do with this person professionally, and you never know when a connection to someone might be useful.

There does seem to be large swathes of users who are Doing LinkedIn Wrong. I constantly get invitations there from friends I already have on Facebook and Twitter, as well as IRL friends, college pals, etc. But no hard feelings—I only accept invitations from people who are in my business network or whose work relates to mine in some tangential way.

LinkedIn is supposed to be the social network for business. Despite my disappointment with them on a number of levels and my low level of usage as a result, their proposition as a company isn't hard to grasp and I don't understand why it's so difficult for others to get it.

I agree.

One chap I recently connected with posted every couple of hours. Links to news stories, a load of hashtags and nothing of particular interest.

However, I still want to remain connected to him, so I just unfollowed him.

Unfollowing is a great feature of the platform. I'm sure people do that to me as well. We're all still connected and happy.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, my newsfeed is usually full of virtual signaling and PR advertisements disguised as personal interactions.