LinkedIn's ominous warning and the false positive problem
LinkedIn is clamping down aggressively, but distinguishing bad actors at scale is hard.
Am I about to get banned? Received this rather ominous warning from LinkedIn early this morning. I can't figure out what I need to do.
Combating inauthenticity
In October, I wrote about comments by LinkedIn's Editor in Chief Daniel Roth where he spoke about how LinkedIn is combating inauthentic engagements.
I was skeptical, but since then, I've seen a lot more discussions of measures such as reduced reach for manual engagement pods, shadow bans applied to some accounts, and algorithmic de-prioritisation of posts. It is clear the team is clamping down aggressively.
However, I've observed those clearly using large-scale engagement pods and AI-written sensationalist posts continue to do extraordinarily well.
On the other hand, I've also noticed a precipitous drop in engagements for many regular content creators who I know write content from scratch.
False positives
I have personally experienced temporary limitations before in 2023, back when I paid for an external service to track my analytics. It went away after I stopped using it.
That experience makes me more sympathetic to how difficult it is to distinguish inauthentic activity at scale, especially for a platform the size of LinkedIn.
So I don't expect LinkedIn to get things right all the time. However, I am still trying to understand what else I can possibly do to change.
Post less? 😅
Have you ever received warnings that were clearly sent in error?
