LinkedIn announces updates to enable safer conversations

LinkedIn is making some changes on the platform and introducing controls to help foster safer conversations.

The updates come in as LinkedIn had heard from users that the platform should set a higher bar for safe conversations given the professional context of LinkedIn.

Policies

The platform is strengthening its Professional Community Policies to make it clearer that hateful, harassing, inflammatory or racist content has no place on the platform.

With people are bringing more conversations about sensitive topics to LinkedIn, it’s critical these conversations stay constructive and respectful, never harmful.

Content or behavior that violates Policies, is acted upon or removed. LinkedIn is starting to roll out new educational content in the feed as a user posts, messages, and engages with others, to review the Policies and to always keep things professional.

Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

The platform is doing more with AI and ML, including an ongoing partnership with Microsoft, to help keep the LinkedIn feed appropriate and professional. More recently, they’ve scaled their defenses with new AI models for finding and removing profiles containing inappropriate content.

They created a LinkedIn Fairness Toolkit (LiFT) to help measure multiple definitions of fairness in large-scale machine learning workflows. They’ve used LiFT to improve the prototype anti-harassment classification systems and now they’re making it broadly available to other companies by open-sourcing it. 

They’ve also implemented AI that helps stop inappropriate, inflammatory, harassing, or hateful content when sent privately via messaging to individual members.

When content is detected as possible harassment, users will see an in-line warning at the top of the message that gives the option to view (and report), or dismiss and mark as safe. This will signal the platform about any unwanted messages from senders, and allow LinkedIn to take appropriate action, including reminding senders of professional guidelines.

Closing The Loop

When a user reports content or behavior that violates our policies, the platform takes action, which can include removing content or restricting an account.

In the coming weeks, they’ll be increasing transparency in this process. They’ll close the loop with members who report inappropriate content, letting them know the action taken on their report. Members who violate policies will be informed about which policy they violated and why their content was removed.

Also Read: LinkedIn shares insights on detection of harassing messages

Safety Controls

• Connect with people you know and trust. By keeping your network tight —  connecting with people you know personally — there is a greater chance those connections can be helpful to the professional life, whether that’s a job recommendation, an introduction, or career advice. 
• Click “Ignore, then I don’t know this person” when you get an invitation you don’t feel comfortable accepting. This removes the invitation without accepting it and the sender won't be notified that you've ignored their invitation. Once you click Ignore, if you select the “I don't know this person” option, you’ll prevent that member from sending you future invitations to connect.
• Unfollow people if you no longer want to receive updates from them. Unfollowing a person will hide all updates from them on your LinkedIn feed, going forward. If you're connected to a person and choose to unfollow them, you'll remain connected but won't see their updates in your feed. They won't be notified that you've unfollowed them. Learn about how to unfollow people.
• Choose your audience when you post. You now have the option to select who gets to see your content. You can select Anyone, which makes your post visible to anyone on or off LinkedIn; Anyone + Twitter, which makes your post visible to anyone on both LinkedIn and Twitter; or Connections only, which makes your post visible to only your 1st-degree connections and reduces the likelihood of people you don’t know or don’t trust seeing your post. 
• Delete or turn off comments. The conversation is important but there may be times when you want the power of your words to stand on their own. You have the option to turn off comments before you post or turn them off after you post. If comments make you feel unsafe or steer the conversation in an unproductive or unprofessional direction, you can delete comments you made on other members’ posts or comments made on content you shared.
• Block members who make you feel unsafe or uncomfortable. Once you've blocked a member, they'll appear on your blocked list. The blocked member won't receive any notification of this action.