After devoting sufficient time to verifying whether my problems with Microsoft’s LinkedIn are simply misunderstandings on my part, it has become clear that the image that Microsoft projects for its LinkedIn platform is a far cry from what is actually going on behind the curtain. That, combined with the ever-increasing phoniness, fakery, and desperation of people whose posts are puked at me by Microsoft’s algorithm makes a change of approach an urgent imperative.
The Microsoft agenda is demonstrated by shadow-banning of posts.
Microsoft regularly shadow-bans posts that go counter to its business model and its agenda of promoting AI and rewarding people who promote AI. A post calling this technology out or even gently criticizing AI or its proponents will get very little reach. In fact, just about any negative post on other topics as well will receive the same reception. Cheerleading posts that are mindlessly positive are rewarded. People who want to game the algorithm to get reach are welcomed to do so. I have neither the time nor the inclination to be so inauthentic.
Phony is the new real: Faking it ’til you make it has been extended to faking it even after you make it or fail to make it.
While a large portion of LinkedIn posts have long been characterized by self-congratulatory fluff, including people proclaiming their excitement or honor about things neither worthy of excitement nor capable of bestowing honor, additionally annoying elements have been recently added to the fluffosphere on LinkedIn. One is the proliferation of charlatan coaches. Originally, these coaches were mostly claiming to teach people how to “stand out” (an overworked expression we need to retire) by creating a killer profile or posting things that attracted work.
The coaching business has now been adopted by AI prompt engineering coaches who claim you can “succeed at AI” (whatever that might mean) by learning how to give AI the proper prompts. They’ll teach you. Just sign up.
Sadly, the LinkedIn coaching business is now being engaged in by some translators looking to make money from their colleagues. They claim to teach translators how to succeed in an AI-transformed business environment. Just attend one of their paid webinars or contact them for a consultation. I have seen no evidence that these translation coaches have any intention of telling their willing victims that, having adopted AI, they will still need to acquire non-AI using clients, something which is not possible for more than a tiny portion of freelancers.
This same type of disingenuous behavior is also engaged in by translators’ organizations, some of which promote paid seminars about how to adapt to or adopt AI, aimed at freelancers for whom all the adapting and adopting in the world will not save from falling into the low-paid post-editing swamp that awaits freelancers. Without clients, AI means nothing, but translators are not told that part of the story. This is shameful behavior on the part of both individual coaches and translators’ organizations.
Posts promoting AI are so numerous that banning user accounts is meaningless.
Every day I receive countless LinkedIn posts that are suggested to me by Microsoft’s algorithm and that promote AI as the greatest thing since sliced bread; AI is the final solution to all our problems, and all you need to do is learn how to give AI the correct prompts. I had started banning accounts that made these posts, but it is clear that the account-banning approach is futile. Ban ten accounts today, and Microsoft will just come up with ten (or twenty) more tomorrow that promote AI. As Microsoft pushes forward with its agenda and business model, it becomes obvious that I should pull back from LinkedIn.
Desperation and Delusions
My feed on LinkedIn is also graced by countless posts from colleague translators delusionally denying that they can be replaced by AI, when in fact AI is already replacing large numbers of freelancers for the translation process. They also claim—correctly, of course—that AI cannot beat a good human translator, but are apparently oblivious to or unwilling to accept the reality that it doesn’t matter. There is a huge demand for translation that is good enough if cheap enough, and that demand only grows as the price drops and speed increases. No amount of complaining by freelancers is going to stop AI-using agencies they have depended on from accessing that market to eliminate the need to pay professional translators. who are left with only extremely low-paid post-editing.
All of this silliness and annoying AI promotion has brought me to the decision to post nothing more on my page on LinkedIn beyond links to content in venues I control. I might make an occasional comment on the pages of other translators or in a group, but I’m not going to donate to Microsoft any content on my LinkedIn page, which does not promote any business activity for me.
This decision is the natural result of Microsoft’s push to make AI the only topic and the only bandwagon people are urged to jump on. I am not going to jump.
