30th July 2025
I've been debating leaving LinkedIn for sometime. I will be deleting my LinkedIn profile and associated pages on September 1st 2025. It's time to go [1]
It's always been a network that I've found to be rather unsociable for a social network. I've thought of it for a longtime as corporate Facebook. My LinkedIn network of folks were a mix of my fencing friends and colleagues at work. Which is an odd mix.
But then in the late 2000s, we often tried out social networks as a group, sending out invitations and finding each other. We hadn't heard of context collapse.
When LinkedIn came on my radar, I had online CV fatigue. I joined on the 4th of July 2006. The attraction of LinkedIn for me was the linking of my work history. Knowing what I know now, it was rather naive of me to trust this network. But then I also joined Facebook for my friends and later twitter because some activists were on it.
I wanted connection. Who doesn't?
We're all older now. We have to consider our values, and as ethical consumers who are also consumed we need to think about who we associate with and where we associate.
I grappled with this question for a while. I'd quit Facebook a few years ago. I quit twitter and so did my FOSS project. This set of decisions wasn't hard and I didn't miss them.
My project has quit GitHub. That decision was trickier, as some of my ecosystem is still on there. NixOS and Rust which does package Librecast is on there for one thing.
LinkedIn isn't my kinda network. I don't find it pleasant to be on apart from a few folks who I know really well and are supportive of what I'm doing with Librecast. I don't vibe well with the majority of the culture on it. I'm just existing on it, I'd rather thrive on other networks like the Fediverse. I get out what I put in on the Fediverse and what I love about the Fediverse is the community. The meaningful interactions.
But I stayed on LinkedIn to promote my project as some EU organisations are on LinkedIn. As an EU project we did have a responsibility to publish some project information there. It's the only time I am on LinkedIn. I get weird spam into my email inbox because of LinkedIn.
On occasion I get DMs from Men looking to date.
It's owned by Microsoft, which also owns GitHub, which supports ICE. Microsoft is very much part of the Military Industrial Complex. It can Open Wash as much as it likes. I do not trust Microsoft.
There are many reasons to not be on LinkedIn.
We also need to consider the question of if EU organisations should be on a social network that is headquartered in the United States. We've already seen what happens when political pressure is put on an American Organisation. They have no choice. Our digital sovereignty goes out of the window. For all we say there's no politics in tech. That isn't true. Organisations are subject to the law. We can all see how Laws are being formed by the political goals of those in charge. So we need to be careful where we associate.
Our communities are political even when they claim that "We don't discuss politics here." You are political, you aren't comfortable with the status quo being disrupted. You aren't comfortable with your specific status quo being disrupted. The conversation is shut down, choosing "No politics" is still a political choice. I'm not interested in networks that make that political choice in the name of doing Business. I want to associate with communities who don't try to shove their personal politics under the carpet. I don't want to be on networks that do the corporate thing, rather than the Human Rights focused thing.
LinkedIn has always been for the Corporate. It's a business connection network. It's not really a community. If there is a community on there, I don't feel a part of it.
So when the Open Terms Archive published an update to the Community Guidelines for LinkedIn yesterday I realised I can no longer be on LinkedIn. [1]
I can't support an anti-social network that will bend the knee to a White Supremacist who is the figurehead of a Government that want's to remove hate speech protections for Transgender individuals. I won't take part in a network that does this.
You can still keep in touch via email, Librecast still exists on the web and on the Fediverse. [2]
I have a presence on other social networks. [3]
I hope to see you around on them.
[1] https://opentermsarchive.org/en/memos/linkedin-removes-transgender-hate-speech-protections/