this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
274 points (96.6% liked)

Technology

34828 readers
16 users here now

This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.

Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.

Rules:

1: All Lemmy rules apply

2: Do not post low effort posts

3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff

4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.

5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)

6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist

7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
274
[OPINION] LinkedIn's new content strategy (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
28 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Got a notification from LinkedIn saying "You're one of the few experts who have been invited to collaborate on ..." I got curious and opened up the link.

Apparently, now instead of professional writers being paid to pen down their, usually, cohesive & authentic views, LinkedIn is trying out the idea of generating content using an LLM and then asking for free editorial services from users in exchange for "badges" 🀯 πŸ€¦β€β™‚οΈ

This is cheap IMO. Even for LinkedIn.

What's happened to the "content team" at LinkedIn!?

all 29 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago

Do you still remember when LI would ask you to give access to your address book and then proceed to spam all your friends? This level of scummy behavior is nothing new.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not surprising. LinkedIn have always been scummy, going back to when they first started and they'd convince people to give them their email accounts and passwords so they could send emails to all their contacts to get them to join. They're also one of only 2 companies that at one point sold my unique email address to spam immediately after joining.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

May I ask which was the other company?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Adult Friend Finder lol. Like, I kind of expected it with that company, but not so much LinkedIn.

The jury's out on exactly what happened. Maybe it was cyber crime, and someone had managed to infect a handful of websites, or maybe it was some underhanded commercial venture that certain places signed up to. I just know that my email address was only ever used on that website - the address didn't even technically exist either, I own a domain and make up emails on the fly, which filter through to my actual accounts. I've been doing this for years, and actually very few places compromised my email - which is why LinkedIn and AFF stand out so much.

Incidentally, I later created a new account with LinkedIn with a new email and didn't have this issue. However, I do still get occassional spam - and spam that is related to my career - so apparently there is still some way people can get LinkedIn email addresses.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I get spam to my work account saying that they got my information from LinkedIn. The e-mail I use on linkedin is a spam collection account that I never use for anything real. I check it every couple of months and delete the entire inbox.

The only place they could get my contact information is one of my suppliers has a shitty webpage design with my info listed. Easy for a bot to scrape and sell.

My current theory is that the professional "sales list" data collection companies are running scraped data against Linkedin data and claiming it came from there.

I get e-mails from from companies who want to sell "sales lead" lists to me as well as a few poorly targeted fools who bought the "sales lead" list from them.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (1 children)

LinkedIn is the worst. Scummiest platform bar none and it’s not even close

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I actually scoffed when I saw there are official linkedin spambots masquerading as real people that message you and ask you to try LinkedIn Premium.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Would anyone actually believe a real person who doesn't work for LinkedIn is asking you to try LinkedIn?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago

Dead internet theories proving more and more applicable

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

You read thing on LinkedIn? Its just for posting bullshit corporate stuff anyway.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

So they go from paying people to provide a service, to convincing people providing them a free service on a ""omg you so smart" basis., got it. That makes sense.

Stop training these companies AI for free

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I've been getting emails with the subject line, "Your expertise is requested," from LinkedIn for several years now. They definitely know how to pander to their audience!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

They're asking lunatics to train the psychologist.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Stop training these companies AI for free

Too late, unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Like we need more keyword-optimized trash contant on that shithole of a site.

GenAI could have great use cases for LI (e.g. TLDR of posts/articles), but that won’t make you click on more spam, so we get this.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Anyone remember before LinkedIn when there was a law that people didn’t have to disclose their race on a job application, and how 90% of people ignored that protection and decided to post up their headshot on linked in anyway?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think you may have slightly misunderstood that law... it says you must not discriminate based on race, not that you should never disclose your race anywhere. I mean, they're gonna see you eventually when you interview anyway.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes but at that point they might as well just interview you instead of dismissing on first sight.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's something to be said about omitting unnecessary details from a job application, to prevent out-of-hand dismissal. But if bias exists it will manifest eventually anyway. If the HR department or management scours the internet for personal details as an excuse to reject someone they've already crossed a line, and a candidate somehow cunning their way into an interview won't change their bias.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yes, but scoring the internet for negative properties is much more effort than looking at a picture the applicant has attached. Do they really have that much time (and the will) to basically background check every single applicant?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Good point! I just replaced my LI profile photo w/ an abstract image 🍻

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't use LinkedIn unless I'm looking for a job.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

And even then it feels dirty AF!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

If I'm gonna be doing freelance editing work for LinkedIn, I'd be charging 125 CAD (90 USD)/hr, 2 hr minimum.

LinkedIn only helped a little with my job search, now I just like and re-share railway news, that's it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I've been getting a lot of these. It was obviously low effort on LinkedIn's part, so I've been giving the same amount of effort by using chatGPT to write my contributions. Garbage in, garbage out.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

If anything, I think it is a way to teach their AI how to answer more complicated questions. The AI may have access to the knowledge, but it doesn't understand how to process it. This gives the AI feedback on what is important in cases where the programmers don't have the knowledge base to correct issues.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Well, they are owned by Microsoft after all... Ramming AI into everything is all they've done in the last year or two (see edge, office etc).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Literally recycled garbage.