Category: Social Media

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

LinkedIn is becoming just another social media cesspool.

In just a week or so, I have seen a rapid and disturbing increase in the number of posts thrown at me by Microsoft’s LinkedIn that are clearly Facebook-like engagement-harvesting slop.

A typical post describes at length some historical or current event that might have happened or a person, although some are clearly total fabrications. Sources are not cited, because there are none to cite.

Most of these posts are lengthy (as if someone told ChatGPT to write N hundred words about XYZ), and much of the writing has the undeniably cadence and style of AI.

Many of these posts are from non-anglophone places. Many of them are accompanied by AI-generated images, and sometimes by photographs that the poster is highly unlikely to have obtained permission to use. This turns a post that is merely annoying drivel into an unlawful act that is annoying drivel.

In any event, while Microsoft seems skilled at detecting when posts are in any way negative, particularly with regarding its platform or AI, and effectively shadow-bans such posts (as it did to this blog post today when it was uploaded to LinkedIn), it actively promotes the above-noted garbage, which is nothing more than AI-slop aimed at harvesting engagement for someone or something with nothing to say or offer.

This garbage needs to be kept on Facebook or other social media platforms, although an argument can be made that the social media platform called LinkedIn is rapidly coming to resemble the Facebook cesspool, and I’m making that argument.

The Church of LinkedIn

I am exceedingly tired of LinkedIn.

It is awash with phoniness, including that of coaches preying on desperate LinkedIn users searching for “LinkedIn” success.

And I’m tired of the delusions that in general proliferate on LinkedIn.

I am tired of people who are addicted to LinkedIn and are believers in the myth that posting on LinkedIn will somehow bring them something good. Only their own efforts will bring them good, and they need to make those efforts in places other than LinkedIn.

LinkedIn itself is a delusion, and the disturbing reality is that the delusion called LinkedIn has been bought into by a frightening number of people.

I guess they want to “believe” in something. LinkedIn is sort of a religion that gives them something to believe in without having to ask for evidence. If you need that, go for it. I prefer the evidence-based real world beyond my computer screen.

The Demise of Authenticity

Is authenticity no longer a “thing?”

I encountered a conversation on LinkedIn yesterday where the original post was clearly written in ChatGPTese or a dialect thereof, and every single comment was responded to in the same ChatGPTese. 

When I asked whether the original post and the responses to numerous apparently human-created comments were being written by a carbon-based entity or something else, I received a quick response, also in ChatGPTese. It didn’t at all read like there was a human behind it.

Authenticity is becoming rare, both on LinkedIn and on other social media platforms. The only input needed from a carbon-based participant is a prompt to a silicon-based assistant, then you just post the result.

Who could tell the difference? Well, just about anyone more intelligent than a starfish and who has not been blinded by the AI hype.

And now, a moment of silence in memory of our dear departed friend, Authenticity.