LinkedIn locked me out of my own account. The only way back is through Persona — a third-party service that wants a photo of my passport, a scan of my face, and a recording of my movements (liveness detection: turn your head, follow the dot, so a still photo can’t stand in for me). The stated reason: “unusual activity.” The real reason, of course, is big tech spearheading a movement toward absolute control over people.
As someone currently unemployed, does anyone have any tips for finding jobs not through LinkedIn?
There are many platforms, I would search for those specific to your area of expertise
My university has a job board but it’s shit
They did the same shit to me. I refused and pestered them with numerous e-mails demanding them to just delete my account instead of reopening it. Finding a link to their contact form was a nightmare (it’s hidden all the way at the bottom of their privacy policy). I also emailed legal@linkedin.com, dpo@linkedin.com, helpdesk@linkedin.com, support@linkedin.com and a number of other generic addresses just to be sure they would receive something.
I got three LLM sounding replies where they asked me to follow a link to verify my identity with a government issued identity document, but after a couple more e-mails where I wrote that providing Persona or LinkedIn with my identity documents is against my personal security policy, they just caved and reopened my account calling it a “temporary measure to protect my account”. Set a new password, logged in and deleted my account immediately. Good riddance.
TBH I’m impressed you got that far. I’d have thought they would 100% stonewall you.
Good riddance for sure. That co has a long history of being sleazeweasels.
Thanks for this post. Saving it in case I ever need it.
Conclusion: Linkedin is malware.
Always has been.
Can we all just agree to adopt a new open source option? That is the only way companies will find us for next jobs. They unfortunately contacted me using LinkedIn in my last 2 jobs so, it is impractical to leave without having a replacement.
I was already pretty low in my estimation of LinkedIn, but this post gave me a little push to decide to close the account.
Same bullshit happened to me when they froze my account after their AI bot flagged me with on false positive for “discrimination” (I’d posted a job with a legitimate language requirement).
They then made me go through some humiliating ritual of having to write them an email with a written promise that I wouldn’t break any discrimination rules, which I hadn’t done to begin with, but the support clown wouldn’t reinstate my account until I’d done their specified grovelling.
Why did you not refuse and find a new place to do business that doesn’t use computer programs to police their sites?
If you’re a salaried employee who isn’t currently looking for work then this might be an option. If you’re a consultant who relies on networking then LinkedIn has a near-monopoly. If you’re not on it then potential clients will assume there’s something wrong.
Probably because they want to actually make some money.
By all accounts I’ve heard, linkedin is garbage. No one finds work there.
And yet 99% of good paying jobs won’t even consider you if you don’t have a LinkedIn. You don’t have to apply on there, or even be active, but you do need one.
That’s news to me I haven’t heard that yet.
I do know a lot of corporate jobs make you hand over social media handles and passwords to do a deep dive on you, then run all your information through threat detection software to see the likelihood that you will develop a case of morals or patriotism that would lead you leak details of the company. That was going on 15 years ago, can’t imagine how bad it is now for banks and the like.
On today’s episode of “How can a a company be this extremely fucking incompetent?”
And nothing of value was lost.
I guess I can understand some people rely on it for work (I have yet to meet anyone who actually got a job through it tho).
But aside from that, what are you missing out on?
A bunch of people pretending to be edgy by bending over for corporate life. “Please steal more of my private time mister capitalism sir”. (Not to mention the data mining)
You don’t wanna be part of that. Have a job and excell at it, but don’t do the whole “can I have another lemon please?” thing. That’s disgusting.
Linked In is extremely useful for open source intelligence.
Keep getting hung up on or sent in loops by the automated phone system? Find the engineer at the company on linked in and email them directly
I got my current job through Linkedin, pretty nice one even
Edit: just saying it can work. I hate the garbage on that site otherwise and never logged in anymore until i need to search for a job again
I got several jobs through it. It’s good place for its core goal, which is to be found and to look for posted openings.
All the other crap is pointless: posts, discussions, trivia, games etc.
The identity verification is a mixed bag.
It’s mostly pointless in the EU because each country has a government body that tracks each ongoing employment contract for the purpose of tax, insurance, credit, work laws, regulations etc. So you really cannot misrepresent yourself.
But there are shenanigans like fake profiles made by bots, or someone putting up a profile pretending to be someone else who may or may not be already on LinkedIn etc. Not sure how you can weed those out without some sort of identity check.
There are however better ways to go about it. For example the EU countries have been (slowly) coming up with benign forms of identity checks.
My country has an online identity platform ran by the government directly, where citizens can enroll voluntarily and use it to perform federated login to other government platforms, and can also see and approve what personal details are shared with those platforms when they do. It’s a completely voluntary alternative to the good ol’ way of making a different account with every government website. (I’m still floored they had the insight to make something so nice.)
So anyway it hasn’t been opened to commercial entities but I could see it be safely used in the future to confirm to a company like LinkedIn that you are indeed a live citizen and nothing else. Just a live API “yes” response with a hash of the citizen ID number; no pics, no data to store.
Its core goal is data harvesting.
Everything else is just what is used to draw people to it so it can achieve that goal.
FWIW. I have defeated live cam with subtle random movement with an AI generated face video looking straight ahead with slight movement, blinking, slightly wider shot (wider shot mean angles aren’t as obvious and a little random movement was sufficient).
I served this back through OBS (Open Broadcast Studio).
But it’s fucked that we need to resort to tricks.
That’s the worst part, their justification for more information to make one safer doesn’t even work.
For-profit security theater.
I think it’s worse than security theatre. I am not usually a tin foil hatter, but im convinced tech isn’t fighting back on this because it’s a great opportunity to hone in that personal advertising.
Notice how they push back on EVERY legislative move or new regulation. But, suddenly now that the same tech can help them out, crickets… ?
Agreed, it’s as if you would let the locksmith go through your mail, indefinitely, after they fixed your frontdoor.
Absolutely ridiculous, right? Well… not so much when your entire digital life goes through gatekeepers like Google, Apple or Microsoft.
Genuine question, what’s the privacy respecting alternative?
Like don’t ask for the passport?
It is a website, this info is not needed at this stage
I meant as a platform. Because Microsoft barely ever listens
Why would anyone want back in? Linkedin is a data harvesting tool disguised as a business site that acts like Facebook.
As awful and shit as it is, it’s still what you gotta put up with if you want to get hired…
The job postings don’t work anymore, and sending applications is a waste of time, but the last 2-3 jobs I’ve gotten were because a recruiter found me on LinkedIn and messaged me…
I wouldn’t do it. When I hire I will score someone negatively if they put linked in on a resume.
I care about my personal information and my businesses. The candidate obviously does not.
This is what laws forbidding the youth from social media gets you. How many of you supported these laws based on the cynical arguments of tech and government that want to lock down the internet?
They accept written/scanned proof of identity signed by a municipal office (german here). Basically, show your ID to an official and haven them sign a paper to proof your identity. Also, a friend told me, a LinkedIn Support Member may neither have capacity nor skill to validate a foreign documents authenticity.
Same thing for me in the US. They just didn’t provide a reason and their Tech Support will not respond.
Which country should I change my location to, which provides the best consumer protection and doesn’t allow companies to demand my KYC documents?
Unironically, North Korea
