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Social Networks

LinkedIn Is the Fakest Platform of Them All 91

Posted by msmash from the top-of-the-chart dept.
Prospect magazine, in a recent piece: "LinkedIn doesn't know me anymore," someone complained to me recently. "What do you mean?" I asked. She explained that the platform has replaced the old "recommended jobs" 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't nearly as relevant.

This is just one of many ways in which the professionals' social media platform, which has embraced artificial intelligence with ferocious zeal, is being gradually "enshittified," to borrow tech writer Cory Doctorow's 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's 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.

Let's start with my opening example -- which, 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.

Then there is the AI writing assistant, which is available to users who pay for the platform's $40 per month premium service to help them craft their posts. LinkedIn's CEO Ryan Roslansky recently admitted that users aren't 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.

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 increased by 45 per cent in the year to June, now clocking in at an average of 11,000 per minute.

LinkedIn Is the Fakest Platform of Them All More | Reply

LinkedIn Is the Fakest Platform of Them All

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  • I am fake as fuck at work (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday August 18, 2025 @12:03PM (#65597498)
    Because I know damn well my real opinions and beliefs aren't going to go over well with the general public.

    We all do some level of masking so it's no surprise that a website specifically designed for professionals is going to be full of masking and being fake

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      It's not the sort of 'fake' you are talking about though.

      You talk of being professional and adopting a separate work appropriate persona. I'd argue this is still 'real', just focused on a distinct set of concerns than you might do personally.

      This fake is all sorts of just utter LLM fabrication coming from all angles. Replacing traditional search with an LLM processing the results leading to someone subjectively seeing lower quality results. AI writing assistant, which can just spew out utterly generic ver

    • Re:I am fake as fuck at work (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Monday August 18, 2025 @12:20PM (#65597562) Homepage

      I always saw LinkedIn as an attempt to bring Hollywood's "making connections to land a role" paradigm to the greater labor market. The thing is, nobody asked for this. I'm glad Microsoft has enshittified the site, because the sooner it's abandoned for the farce that it is, the better. Being qualified for a job should be about what you know, not who you know.

      • Agreed, all I use linked in for is figuring out where my coworkers are currently and reading what they post. Anything from LinkedIn itself goes straight into the trash.

      • I hope Shithub goes down too. It's the LinkedIn for software developers.

      • Being qualified for a job should be about what you know, not who you know.

        Maybe theoretically, but unless you have some magical method for determining "qualified", the real world isn't so simple.

        My current and previous jobs both were obtained because people who had worked with me before sought me out. They didn't have to guess; they knew.

        Connections matter.

        Now whether LinkedIn connections map much to real world connections, who knows ... but you aren't going to stop "who you know" from mattering.

      • The thing is, nobody asked for this.

        The people in the know without connections very much asked for this. The problem is that most people don't realise that many of the top jobs have always been the result of Hollywood style connections. Once you're out of the bottom rungs and start earning "real" money most of your job landings have always resulted from personal poaching and industry connections.

        LinkedIn had the potential to offer a foot into this door and many people very much did ask for this. Those who didn't were either already a member o

      • Being qualified for a job should be about what you know, not who you know.

        Being qualified for a job is good. Having many coworkers, ex-coworkers or partners know it is better. And that a potential employer personally knows this person ? It is invaluable.

    • Re:I am fake as fuck at work (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Fons_de_spons ( 1311177 ) on Monday August 18, 2025 @03:17PM (#65598036)
      I am a teacher. I am well versed in pedagogy and the accompanying jargon. Similar to corporate speak, the social sciences also have their own jargon to specify certain patterns. I just don’t. I use plain, simple words. I do this with my colleagues, I do this with parents. Some regard me as unprofessional because of this—especially parents who are teachers themselves. But usually, after a few meetings they get used to it, and often they even join me in speaking like a normal human being. I once had a professor in pedagogy who eventually adapted to it as well. It took two years, but my last conversation with her this August was a warm, relaxed chat. Stop pretending. We are all ordinary, fallible human beings. The more you compensate, the more you embarrass yourself. Just quit it.
      For those in denial, here is the same comment in jargon:
      As pedagogy is maintained by large, longstanding institutions, it is not unexpected that these institutions display the classic features of institutionalism, where scientifically grounded principles gradually become diluted and begin to function more as rituals. It is therefore imperative to remain critical of established, purely cognition-based frameworks. Let us not underestimate the potential gains that can be achieved through simple, ordinary situated cognition.
      Plain words may not be polished. They may not be backed by elaborate statistics that prove significance while hiding sensitivity. They may sometimes be wrong, even painful, and yes—innocence can be lost. But our cognitive abilities are limited, and our subconscious exists for a reason: to help us act without overthinking, to carry what cannot be neatly calculated. Life is too short to dissect every detail into theory. Speak simply. Think clearly. Be human.

      • Police and fire used to use 10 codes on the radio, but now they use plain talk, because in a crisis all that bullshit is just a potential source of confusion and doesn't actually help anything.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by mitchy ( 34242 )

          Many years ago my high school buddy and I were sitting in the car, just pulled into a parking lot for a strip mall. We see a cop running in as fast as he can, talking into his radio. My buddy exclaimed "CODE SEVEN!!! CODE SEVEN!!! HOLY SHIT" jumped up and ran after the cop.

          Perplexed, I took off after my buddy, finally getting close enough to yell "hey what is a code seven?" to which he turned his head back in my direction, yelled "FREE DONUTS" and kept running.

  • Curse of Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OffTheLip ( 636691 ) on Monday August 18, 2025 @12:04PM (#65597508)
    While LinkedIn has always sucked to some degree it has now over-achieved under the tutelage of Microsoft. "Skype-ish" is an adequate parallel.

  • Using LI less and less (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 ) on Monday August 18, 2025 @12:18PM (#65597546)

    I don't really use it to look for jobs, but the level of spam has increased exponentially. Between the cold call emails from developing countries, offers from total strangers to "compensate" me for interviews about products they are hawking or soliciting information about my project needs, or just "hey I'd love to connect" from someone with zero contacts in common and a young female glamor shot attached to the fake account.....I've just started to tune out. I should have known it was going to quickly deflate with the advent of pet videos, political commentary, and a gaggle of "self help" blowhards all trying to compete for eyeballs.

    Zero value add....seeya.

  • I never found it useful (Score:3)

    by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Monday August 18, 2025 @12:20PM (#65597566)

    I created an account years ago out of curiosity
    I never got anything of value from it, but I started getting emails with job offers totally unrelated to my talents and interests

  • I'm very happy to say (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Monday August 18, 2025 @12:27PM (#65597588)

    I've never had to post my resume on fucken LinkedIn. If there's one thing I truly detest, it's unprinciped Big Data sonsabitches like Microsoft making money out of people's need to make a living.

    LinkedIn, Office365, Teams... All those tools are basically forced on professional who need to find or keep a job, and Microsoft essentially abuses people's data against their will.

    • making money out of people's need to make a living.

      As a matter of interest do you only hate services which are provided based on information, or do you hate all people who make money based on your need? Do you grow your own potatoes because those fucking farmers making money out of your needs? What about those supermarkets, how dare they provide a shopping service for someone in need of buying something.

      Hating one specific category of service provided is quite some mental gymnastics there.

  • Matchmaker, matchmaker... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dsgrntlxmply ( 610492 ) on Monday August 18, 2025 @12:28PM (#65597590)
    I especially liked the day that it delivered, in the same email, Vivek Ramaswamy and Snoop Dogg as suggested follows.

  • Linkedin used to be better (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Monday August 18, 2025 @12:36PM (#65597610)
    I used to find decent job opportunities on LinkedIn, but those days are gone. The platform has been swamped with floods of "click-to-apply" candidates, most of whom are not remotely qualified. This glut has forced companies to treat LinkedIn less as a serious hiring tool than as as a crude funnel for applications to be shoveled into automated filters. The result is predictable: the final applicant pool is noise, exaggerations outright lies. That doesn't mean LinkedIn is worthless but the way to use it has changed. Here is the effective approach:

    - Go to LinkedIn and search for job postings.
    - Identify positions that are a genuine fit for your skills and experience.
    - DO NOT apply directly through LinkedIn. If the company's automated system rejects you there, it will almost certainly note the duplicate application and reject you again when you apply properly.
    - Instead, go to the company's official website. Apply there with a carefully tailored resume and cover letter.

    In other words, treat LinkedIn as a radar, not as a launchpad. Use it to find the targets, then go straight to the source if you want a real chance of being hired.

  • Replacing working functionality with bad AI (Score:4, Interesting)

    by codemachine ( 245871 ) on Monday August 18, 2025 @12:41PM (#65597630)

    Why are so many websites trying so hard to replace functionality that already works with a half-baked AI?

    They're spending money on development time to create this feature, which then requires them to spend money on data centres to power this AI going forward. In the end they get a worse website that costs more to operate. How can this possibly be good business?

    • Because it justifies my position as the person who will lead you to the promised land ... if you don't believe me, I'm out of a job.

      Let's face it, this is how the information economy works. We invent new shit that you don't really need, we convince you to use it because "innovation".. you don't want to be left behind, do you ?

      Then you lose your skills and become dependent on our product, then we raise prices.

    • Because the big tech companies have ploughed enormous amounts of money into terrible GenAI, are throwing it at downstream tech companies (including their own subsidiaries) to try and grow market share, because they need to get that promised RoI somehow. So have some terrible slop.

      Er, no thanks. I'll pass.

  • It's the same tired shit that you see on FB, just for professionals. There is apparently an option to use it to look for jobs, but it's hard to find.
    • What's so odd is that folks use the platform as something to post a bunch of (social media type) opinions. Dunno about you guys but my opinions about most things are never talked about at work - because it's not the venue. We have a job to...work. What we think of whatever - politics, religion, world events, upcoming trends - isn't relevant at work. SMH is typically what I do when looking at people's LI posts.
  • At 11,000 a minute, linked is making some series cash.
  • LI was just full of garbage and not useful at all. Don't miss it.
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/Linke... [reddit.com] (Reddit LinkedIn lunatics, poking fun at influencers and others) I've been trolling relentlessly on LinkedIn while watching the decline.

  • Scanned a barcode at the office for a cleaning position (was intrigued that HR figured out QR codes). As of then it recommends me all kinds of cleaning jobs!
    Let's just say I've been in IT/software from before linkedin existed and am still daily bothered by fallout (spam) of them getting hacked.

    Waste of time.... Or maybe just life nowadays...

    • same here. My data has been breached so many times by so many vendors since then. I was just notified last week that WestJet airline carrier was hacked and I was a victim. Passport info?
      but the old LinkedIn hack from yesteryear had the biggest impact on me. especially because back then my LinkedIn profile was quite verbose.

      If I am too reluctant to input data into my linkedIn profile and AI is enshitifying....what good is it.

  • Destroyed by their own 'AI' (Score:3)

    by Sarusa ( 104047 ) on Monday August 18, 2025 @01:06PM (#65597706)

    I find it quite funny (and appropriate) that a Microsoft company, which is making everything dogshit with their 'AI', is now so flooded with fake 'AI' crap generated resumes and shotgun 'recruiters' and hiring scammers that they're buckling under the flood and having to roll out completely useless 'AI' to cope with it.

    Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of evil jerkwads. Who could have guessed that if you gave everyone high power fecal hoses things might get a bit stinky?

    • Microsoft was the perfect company to push AI: it's always produced shit products, so AI couldn't make them any worse.

      • Microsoft makes products that people pay money to use. The alternatives are so terrible that even using them for free is off the menu.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Sarusa ( 104047 )

          The recent slop from them is so bad, though, that our office has actually gone back to fixed Office 2021. No updates, no AI constantly popping up, no random UI clusterfarks, we can just use it - what a concept. Office 2021 is in every way better than Office 365 is in 2025. We still have Win11 (I am not the IT guys), but all the AI crap has been disabled at a group policy level, which (for now) they still let you do if you're part of a domain. At some point though, they're going to consider whether going

  • Most of the job listings these days are from SPAMBOTS. Like Lensa. Apply to one of their listings and you will be "subscribed" to dozens of spam lists that you have to unsubscribe from individually. I try to search there an EXCLUDE Lensa and guess what? LinkedIn forces them back in!
  • Lininkedin is nothing more than a giant peeing contest, people trying to spout as much corporate BS as they can to try and impress a potential future employer. The trouble is decent employers are not looking on LinkedIn to recruit people, only clueless recruitment agents.
  • LinkedIn was a failure with few users until they violated privacy and started sending spam emails and invites to people's contacts.

  • is being gradually "enshittified,"

    No, it's not. It's being rapidly or even instantly enshittified. To the extent it wasn't already, since this is LinkedIn we're talking about.

  • Freemium Slide (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Monday August 18, 2025 @01:27PM (#65597764) Homepage Journal

    There must be a name for this phenomenon, but it goes like this:

    Offer a decent free-to-join platform with ads to build a large network effect.
    (cool)
    Add additional functionality for paid subscribers.
    (sure, no problem)
    Move almost all features from the free tier to the paid tier making all the free users leave the platform with only ghost accounts still there.

    At that point the bean counters see that their revenues are still OK but they haven't seen that their network effect has vanished.

    Soon no more free users will convert to the premium tier.

    Then revenues start to dip due to natural attrition (e.g. retirement)

    Then they raise prices to balance the books.

    More users bail on premium and the cycles gridlock. Advertisers no longer see value due to few users.

    "Then suddenly."

    (sounds like "just add AI" is the new Hail Mary pass)

  • "... is being gradually "enshittified," to borrow tech writer Cory Doctorow's phrase."

    It's not borrowed, it's part of /.'s promotional contract. Stop trying to make fetch happen.

  • I googled my name recently. Top result was linked in. They had a single job I've had in the past linked to my real name. I've never signed up for linked in, though.
  • Linkedin has just become an AI collection site. I get 4-5 offers a week, not for a job but to invest in some scam. Due to my you would make an excellent investor. I also get a lot of junk mail from linkedin itself trying to upsell me on services. Look people are looking at you but pay us and we will show you who. Many of the job post are junk.

  • LinkedIn has been fake for a loooong time (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DaFallus ( 805248 ) on Monday August 18, 2025 @02:00PM (#65597830)
    As far as I can remember, LinkedIn has always been full of bullshit. LinkedIn has been plagued with bullshit from CEOs and business owners posting stories about fake interactions with employees and job applicants as well as trite brown nosing sycophantic bullshit from people trying to do anything to get management to notice what a good little corporate cuck they are. For some great examples, check out r/LinkedInLunatics on Reddit.

  • a new and annoying task: crafting prompts for the AI

    Get used to it. Crafting prompts will be the only work left.

    Much like the software biz just after the turn of the century. Prepare requirements and document your current work processes for the incoming H-1B staff.

    • there is an ai that crafts prompts for the other ai.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by znrt ( 2424692 )

      Crafting prompts will be the only work left.

      it's not "crafting prompts". you mean "conducting an interaction to generate a flow of thought where the right specifications eventually emerge". just go with the flow: ask the ai to ask you what you need. a million snake oil prompt coaches on youtube can't be wrong!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        generate a flow of thought where the right specifications eventually emerge

        Is that the "4) ????" step.

  • You were hoping for Artificial Intelligence.

    What you got was Alienating Incompetence.

    (A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse).

  • AI 'Business Agents' Will Kill SaaS by 2030, Says Microsoft

    (how very excellent AI is going to replace custom built applications that solve actual problems)

    followed by

    Linkedin is the Fakest Platform of Them All

    (basically says MicroSoft's LinkedIn which is replacing custom built features with AI generated content really sucks)

    kinda writes the posting all by itself!

  • Hacking. LinkedIn is the absolute pillar of any social engineering and spear phishing attempt. Perfect for mapping out companies, departments, individuals with power, access and clearance. All because stupid people share their private information so willingly in futile hopes for a better job that never comes. It's all a cold war on who is more fake.

  • Annoying recruiters (Score:3)

    by crivens ( 112213 ) on Monday August 18, 2025 @05:18PM (#65598250)

    I got a message through LinkedIn from a recruiter, asking if I was interested in a position in Australia. Admittedly, the job was very relevant and interesting, and I might have applied, except I live in Canada. Go figure.

  • And a piece of shit too. It is one of the most ridiculous entities that the software development world has come up with - and that's saying something.
  • I deleted my LinkedIn account over 10 years ago. I recently thought about rejoining. Not going to now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shilly ( 142940 )

      You need to do what’s right for you. All I’ll say is that for all the disgruntled articles like this, I was able to get an excellent job a couple of years ago via LI, and it was via an unsolicited query from a recruiter, and it was dead easy to tell that the recruiter was real and the enquiry was genuine. You can ignore 99.9% of LI stuff and just make it work for you as and when you’re actually interested, at least in my experience

  • That alone was enough for me to uninstall it. If I have to find a contact, which is rare these days, almost everyone retired or got laid off, I can always log in on a browser.

  • Its a toxic environment of liars , ignoramuses and armchair experts doing opinion pieces in fields about which they know very little. The denial and "shh we dont talk about those issues here" stance there exemplifies the attitudes of the global corporate workplace.

  • I posted some information about me on LinkedIn but have ignored all requests to link. I run multiple unrelated businesses and links to other people would just confuse anyone who looks me up. Plus I detest social media and linking is social media's charm/curse.

    Once I received a LinkedIn request to link from my sister. I thought that was odd so I asked her. She did not request a link. So LinkedIn also lies to us. That's enough for me to stay away.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )
      That's the best course of action. Ignore linking to anybody you don't have a personal relationship with and your life will be much better. Absolutely never link to recruiters, salesmen or such like unless you like being harassed. If they link it means they don't have to spend inmail points so they spam with impunity.
  • LinkedIn is just a meat market. You exist on the site so they can sell you as results to job agencies, or sales people. The best course of action is don't join unless you have to and if you have to interact with it in the minimal way possible - turn on the privacy settings, ignore "inmails", use ad blockers. And sort the feed by time, not relevance to hide most of the inane posts by assholes who pay for prominence.

  • ...of clueless managers throwing AI at everything, and making the user experience far worse.

  • I know there are a lot of people claiming LinkedIn is garbage. Many of these comments start with "I uploaded gibberish for my CV..." and I am thinking "well what real human would see that and want to reach out to you?" Of course you only get spam, duh.

    I've used LI for centuries now, and have used it for a variety of purposes, including keeping in touch with former colleagues. I agree they (Microsoft) should have just left it alone long ago, and it is far less useful than it has ever been which is unfortunat

  • They're more interested in montetizing you than in you finding a job.

    They're shitty. That about covers it.

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