Monday morning for me began with some infinite scrolling through Tumblr, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. But what caught my eye was a frankly disgusting post on LinkedIn by content writer Kanika Nayan. A few weeks ago, way back in 2018, I addressed the use of LinkedIn as a means for people to approach you in a very inappropriate way.
Kanika shared a screenshot of a conversation with Sumit Singh, captioned, “This guy contacted me for a job offer. Since a girl is speaking to you on a professional issue, how can you dare to address her with such personal and inappropriate endearments. I am appalled at the way some men behave over LinkedIn. This is LinkedIn, not Tinder.”
The conversation, as shown in the screenshot, is nauseating, given he calls her ‘babes’ and goes on to defend himself, asking, “You want job or no?”
Kanika responds with a blatant ‘no’ and calls him out on his lack of professionalism. Curious one that I always am, it seems as though Sumit Singh has put his profile on private. Hopefully, his supervisor has asked him if he’d still like his “job or no?”
The sexism within this platform, based on how you’re posed and dressed in your profile picture, is demeaning. A #MeToo movement in LinkedIn should be highlighted — how is it not a thing? With the Internet teeming with all sorts of miscreants, it sucks that we have to be vigilant while seeking employment, be it casting couch horrors or asking for a simple email address.
Rants and ramblings across cyberspace
Update: In response to the story, LinkedIn has reached out to The Hindu MetroPlus with a statement, as below:
“Our members place their trust in us. We fight to protect them and make sure that LinkedIn remains a respectful and professional community. It’s absolutely not acceptable for a member to harass others on LinkedIn and we have taken appropriate action. A member can report any behaviour or content they believe is inappropriate, in addition to blocking members. We take a report very seriously and our team reviews each case individually.
We investigate all reported material with our User Agreement and Professional Community Policies in mind. If it violates our policies, we take action, which can include removing the content or suspending the account. When a member reports another member's content, they will not know who reported them. A LinkedIn member can also block other members so that they no longer see each other’s messages, profiles and updates — more info here . Additionally, members can control what type of messages they would like to receive within their settings .”
