This article is for LinkedIn users are being moderated in groups for no reason or group managers that are experiencing increased post moderation of their membership.
It happened to me recently in my LinkedIn Group, Elephants at Work. A group member’s discussion ended up in the moderation queue. I figured I was new to being a group owner/manager but then I caught wind of the latest (non-official) LinkedIn Policy you probably don’t know about – moderation across all LinkedIn Groups even if you are a creditable user and not a spamming loser.
Rather than me telling you my story, a reader shared her story with me where the implications of LinkedIn’s actions are causing much more dis-satisfaction, stress and time – and she’s a paying LinkedIn recruiter!
Reader: LinkedIn has become an incredible, powerful, and dominating resource on the web and users scream its praises. What happens when LinkedIn starts to implement policies that hinge on a slippery slope and they neglect tell their user community about the changes?
I can tell you exactly what happens: a user like me gets caught in the middle and quite frankly, it sucks. It’s been about 6 weeks and I’m still working on getting it resolved. My motto throughout this: “I really am a creditable user, not a spamming loser”.
Recently I noticed that my posts were being moderated across every LinkedIn group I’m a member of. As of yesterday that’s about 50 groups and a number of subgroups. Interesting enough I thought it was some sort of glitch, a bug in the matrix.
It nagged me and I started to think about it; many group owners I know personally. After contacting a couple of them, they were equally shocked that I somehow/someway was being moderated, even though they never put the strangle hold on my group membership.
As for all the other groups; there was no way these folks would moderate me all at the same time. I didn’t know what the odds were, but I highly doubted they all conspired against me. So I opened a trouble ticket. Interesting response from LinkedIn’s Group Support, that’s for sure.
Hi,
Your discussion and comments may be pending in a specific group because you were blocked and removed from another group by its manager or owner. If you’re experiencing this issue across multiple groups, your postings to other groups are still submitted; however, they are now pending until a member of the group’s management team approves it for posting.
This is done to ensure that members who post in groups are posting with a certain level of professionalism. This doesn’t mean your posting quality is poor, but the measure itself is put in place to ensure that the group’s management is able to control content across all members in their group who’ve been blocked from other groups.
As an additional note, please be aware that we can’t provide a list of groups you were blocked from. Any group owner or manager can un-restrict your posting permissions in their group. You can contact the group’s management team and request that they allow your discussions and comments to post in their group. Here’s how:
They go on to tell me how to do it, but after re-reading the statement above, I came to this conclusion: One group owner limited and moderated my profile against every group I am a member of. Every group has different rules, but they allowed one manager’s rules to override all others.
Keep in mind folks, no where in the group that banished me, did they have a rule or policy saying a person couldn’t share an article. Other members openly shared the same types of articles and were applauded for it. The article I actually shared was very spot on with what the Data group was about – A Forbes article about Data Center needs pushing market growth. Maybe, just maybe because I have the term “recruiter” after my name, I was booted. That, my friends, is a whole different topic all together.
After searching LinkedIn I can find no mention of this policy, anywhere. I have repeatedly asked for a link directing me to this policy and I’m still waiting 6 weeks later. It doesn’t officially exist, yet. How do I even accomplish explaining to group owners why I was moderated, when I have no policy to direct them to?
So far, I have received either very confused responses back, no response back, or very receptive responses back that result in a phone call explaining why & how this happened in a group that they own and how to change my permissions.
Even worse yet, there’s still a glitch that I have reported to LinkedIn and yet still haven’t heard anything back on yet (which reminds me to check in with Betsy). After your permissions are changed within a group, your posts may still end up in the submission queue, just not in the moderation queue any longer. Yes, you heard that right. LinkedIn’s response in the above isn’t holding water. I have the print screens to prove it.
The slippery slope of all of this: Think about the destruction and repercussions to your profile that one single group manager can cause.
- One group owner being able to control your user experience on LinkedIn.
- The effects on activity within groups putting members on guard that if they share something they may be booted & moderated across all other groups.
- “Well LinkedIn is free, deal with it” is not always the case. We pay for upgraded accounts & actually pay for job slots to advertise. Insanely enough, even those paid for jobs will end up into the moderation and submission queues. I certainly will NOT pay for another job slot knowing I can’t share it within groups.
- Think about sabotage by competitors.
- Think about how this reflects and/or tarnishes your image on LinkedIn.
- Think about the amount of time it will take to have your permissions changed. So far, it has been 6 weeks & 10 groups later. 5 groups total that I have left thus far because of lack of response. I have about 40+ more to go.
- Think about groups you may want to join in the future. I can’t tell you if you’ll be moderated in new groups that you join because I still am waiting on an official policy.
- And I’m sure there’s more.
So, if you find yourself fighting this battle, here is my suggestion.
- Share this article into groups CAREFULLY or with the group owner. Write a brief note to the Owner of the group asking them if they are aware of this policy and ask them to get in contact with you because you are experiencing moderation within their group. (If you belong to many groups, I highly advising tracking when you reached out. This will help when determining if you should stay within that group).
- Open a trouble ticket with LinkedIn Customer Support letting them know your profile is moderated across all groups. During your dialogue with the Group Owners, whom will tell you they know nothing about this, start to forward their responses back to LinkedIn Customer Support with your trouble ticket number in the subject line. At one point I counted 20 e-mails I sent along in one day. “Betsy” at LinkedIn Support probably wasn’t happy, but I got my point across.
- Get your group owner on the phone and have them change your permissions with you on the line, (if they are receptive, believe you are creditable and make sure you understand their rules). Once changed, do a test. If it ends up in submission queue, ask the owner to send you a print screen of your test sitting in the queue as well as a separate print screen showing your permission has been set to “approved to post”. Send this information to LinkedIn Support with the trouble ticket number in the subject line.
- If a Group Owner or Manager is not responsive, leave the group. Plain & simple.
- Advocate to LinkedIn Customer Support for an official policy or better yet, to eliminate this (non-official, that nobody knows about, that is wrong on so many levels, and that labels innocent people as spammers) policy.
- Urge the Group Owners to get in contact with LinkedIn Customer Support and lobby against this un-official policy, which has been implemented.
- And remember, “you really are a creditable user, not a spamming loser”.
Hi Lynn,
I couldn’t agree more, people are referring to it as SWAM (Site Wide Auto Moderation). I think the policy is a very ill conceived idea and as a result have just set up a group to petition against it. Please feel free to join it and spread the word http://www.linkedin.com/groups/SWAMd-Site-Wide-Auto-Moderation-4901003/about?trk=anet_ug_grppro
Jessica, I hope this helps your group get off the ground and that LI takes notice. I’ll have to see if I can work rethink some group memberships since I am at the max level…but you have my support!
I think linkedin has become to arrogant… first they removed Events that too without any warning… that removed Q & A and now this.
Saket,
Some of the changes I get, but don’t necessarily like especially if LI has to prioritize where they make their investments in new services. However, this change is not a service that benefits some of their paying users nor does it support building positive user reputations.
Great article, Lynn, on a little-known LinkedIn policy change. I think you’re missing a “close italic” tag in your formatting, FYI.
Like you, I’ve got to track back who flagged me and why. No small task as I’m quite active in more than 40 groups.
You raise some great points about potential repercussions. I’m a little surprised that LinkedIn made such a poorly thought out and sweeping policy change (even if unofficially). This is the kind of “change first, think through it later” approach Facebook has frequently employed in the past that LinkedIn has always seemed to avoid.
Ashely,
The majority of this article was from a reader who got caught in the cross-fires. My experience was minimal, but left me scratching my head…why is this person showing up in my moderation que in the group I manage. After talking to the reader directly, she agreed to share her story because I don’t want to see others going through the rollercoaster she’s been on. Good luck on turning your situation around.
I appreciate the catch on formatting.
I couldn’t agree more. LinkedIn’s policy to automatically punish someone across all their groups simply because a moderator has deleted a person from 1 group is rife with problems. For one thing it gives moderators a disproportionate and undeserved power to harm LinkedIn members.
In my case, I made a courteous comment which partly agreed with something the moderator had said and partly agreed with another person with whom he disagreed. Believe it or not, the moderator instantly began making threats. In fact, he EXPLICITLY mentioned the damage he could do me as a result of deleting me from his group. No options were given except to grovel at his feet; and, in fact, he instantly carried out his threat for completely illegitimate reasons.
When I reported this to LinkedIn, they fell back on their laissez faire policy. That would be ok if they hadn’t armed abusive moderators with disproportionate power to damage the LinkedIn experience and professional reputation of everybody else. But, as things stand, for LinkedIn to both (1) enable moderator abuse and (2) refuse to police the situation is grossly negligent.
LinkedIn ought to correct both policies. They should begin by (1) monitoring for moderator abuse and taking corrective action and (2) remove a feature that automatically penalizes (and defames) LinkedIn members without justification. Such measures should be subject to LinkedIn review — not automatic or placed in the hands of moderators who may abuse them or trigger them inadvertently.