Category: Social Media

Thoughts on socia media, which has addicted many and alienated others.

What LinkedIn Has Become: Taking silly and vapid to a new level.

Years ago I was under the impression that LinkedIn was a platform where people searching for employment could interact with potential employers. Silly me to believe that the platform would not evolve into what it is today.

Today, the platform is awash with self-congratulatory posts from people who are likely desperate to find their next “role.” This makes me wonder just it was when a job became a role. I guess the term position needed to be “elevated,” and I think it was some time after problems became issues and considerably after the personnel department was rebirthed to HR. But I digress.

Another annoyance that LinkedIn provides is the countless self-styled coaches, many selling advice on how to “succeed on LinkedIn.” My guess is that many are themselves desperate to succeed and are working the aisles of other desperate LinkedIn users.

Then there are the AI evangelicals, promoting collections of computer code running in silicon-based entities as the answer to all the problems…uh, issues…faced by carbon-based entities.

Quite central to most of these vapid posts is the use of a blinding variety of buzzwords and buzzphrases, devoid of any identifiable substance, but trendy nonetheless.

It appears that substance takes a backseat to fluff on LinkedIn, which is rapidly coming to rival all other social media platforms, although perhaps without the same level of criminal activity (yet, anyway), and no single identifiable Trumpic sycophant at the helm.

Pass the puke bucket: Microsoft’s LinkedIn rolls along as a platform for charlatans.

[I posted the following to LinkedIn yesterday, March 3, 2025, and it was quickly shadow-banned by Microsoft.]

This morning Microsoft’s LinkedIn algorithm thought (although it can’t think) I would be interested in a post (an ad, actually) from a self-styled LinkedIn ghostwriter claiming to have clients paying him 1000s of dollars a month to “grow their LinkedIn accounts” (totally meaningless, of course), saying he got thousands of connections for himself using an AI ghostwriting tool he developed. He claims that not only does the AI tool write viral, engaging posts for you on LinkedIn, it also generates ideas about what to post based on your business. It sounds like it tells you what to write.

This type of tool is best used by people who have nothing say and don’t know how to say it. Professionals know what they need to say and can say it.

This nonsense demonstrates quite well what Microsoft’s LinkedIn platform has become, a tool for charlatans working the aisles of desperate people who believe that LinkedIn “success” will save them.

I’m not surprised that this ad got hundreds of comments requesting the AI tool freebie trial. The wretched masses are yearning to get connections. Go for it. 

In case people are wondering, the ghostwriter is young and has a profile that doesn’t indicate any qualifications or experience; no education shown and no experience in organizations other than the business he runs, and its website doesn’t have a physical address and doesn’t even name him. You need to be really dumb to not realize what that suggests.

Charlatans selling to the huddled masses yearning to have connections and have “LinkedIn success” have become the norm on Microsoft’s LinkedIn platform.

And I guess the blocking of this garbage from your LinkedIn feed is left up to the unfortunate recipients.

LinkedIn has become pretty much meaningless, unless you are working the aisles of desperate users or you can’t resist the opportunity to say that you are excited, thrilled, or honored to announce something.

For my part, I am annoyed to announce that Microsoft has effectively removed any value from its LinkedIn platform.

Farewell to App-mediated Interaction

App-mediated interactions with people reachable in the real world are of very limited interest to me.

My first step in exiting from the app-mediated world and returning to the real world is the trashing my Facebook account, which I did on February 16.

This was not directly caused by, but was certainly accelerated by an increasing awareness of the crime promoted by and actively participated in by Zuckerberg on his Facebook platform, and by his total lack of a moral compass. His active selection of targets for criminal advertisers is obvious, unless you install an ad-blocker that enables you to pretend that it isn’t happening, although it will still be happening.

Another annoyance is the incessant unlawful publishing on Facebook of images stolen and published without permission from their owners. IP theft appears to have become the norm. Add to that the reality that the platform is flooded with meaningless AI-generated garbage, and the decision to bail out becomes a no-brainer.

Zuckerberg’s sucking up to Mango Mussolini who sits on his throne in the White House is an additional factor, but my move away from social media platforms was coming way before Zuckerberg openly joined the ranks of Trump-sycophantic scum.

As long as things like those plantation investment scams on LinkedIn don’t get totally out of hand, I might remain on that single social media platform.

That said, the missionaries for the Church of the Amazing AI on LinkedIn are increasingly annoying. My still being on that platform must be a demonstration of my tolerance for alien belief systems.