LinkedOut

Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth®

Learn how I’ve been banned from Linkedin, though not why, because none of us knows why. Consider what might happen to you—with your business, a special event, your reputation—when these aloof, powerful social media platforms simply use stupid algorithms and poorly trained people. Social media are really public utilities at this point and, as much as I’m not a fan of big government control, I do think they need to be controlled just as the gas, electric, and water companies are. Imagine if your accountant, or attorney, or architect refused to talk to you in person and required only automated interactions? How long would you stand for that? What Zuckerberg et. al. created and, too ironically, Musk is now a part of, has morphed into cesspools of disinformation, misinformation, and confirmation bias. I’m told by several people who are social media savvy that only 15% of members post over 75% of content, and 100% of the 15% are either radicals on the right or left. If you want to post photos of family vacations or impress someone with your new boat, go for it. But for most people in professional services, there is too much “noise” and amateurism on social media for them to serve as legitimate marketing routes. Scores of people have written me since I exposed this banishment, telling me that they or friends have been banned for varying amounts of time without explanation. Yet I find myself dealing daily, on Facebook in particular, with profanity, threats of violence to various groups, and rudeness. My model train group was closed by the administrators because the members had become intolerable in their fighting about modelling! It’s social media (not “business media”) and if you haven’t noticed yet, society is getting pretty ugly.