Inflammatory political memes and false news find a new social media home: LinkedIn

LONDON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 03: The LinkedIn app logo is displayed on an iPhone on August 3, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images) LONDON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 03: The LinkedIn app logo is displayed on an iPhone on August 3, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images) Photo: Carl Court, Getty Images Photo: Carl Court, Getty Images Image 1 of / 28 Caption Close Inflammatory political memes and false news find a new social media home: LinkedIn 1 / 28 Back to Gallery

When conspiracy theorists, hyperpartisan news pushers and inflammatory political meme generators began to be "censored" or banned from Facebook and Twitter, some didn't disappear from social media completely. As Buzzfeed News reports, many simply regrouped and moved over to LinkedIn, a social network primarily intended as a networking tool for business professionals and job hunters.

LinkedIn told Buzzfeed that posts inciting harassment or spreading "inaccurate or misleading content" are not tolerated on the site. However, that hasn't effectively stopped close to 100 accounts that Buzzfeed researchers and LinkedIn user and Method Media Intelligence CEO Shailin Dhar discovered to be spreading such posts.

In some instances, Buzzfeed wrote, these LinkedIn profiles listed little to no information about themselves and sometimes didn't even include a photo. That doesn't appear to stifle engagement with their posts, as in the instance of one post depicting a Photoshopped image of Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams posing with Muslim activist Linda Sarsour, coupled with the caption "communist."

Nevertheless, some of those users spreading misleading and false content still complain of being "shadowbanned" or "censored" by the social network.

The user who posted the fake image of Abrams has 3,000 LinkedIn followers, and told Buzzfeed, "I have been heavily censored by [LinkedIn] and had posts removed and I have been suspended several times ... for being conservative and making pro Trump posts."

LinkedIn offered a comment to SFGATE on the report, stating that the site's members primarily want to have "constructive conversations."

"While most of our members do not share political content," the statement continues, "we do believe that high quality discourse that is relevant to our purpose, to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce, has a place on our platform. However, any form of abusive behavior does not. This includes behavior such as harassment of others or sharing of inaccurate or misleading content.

"Our User Agreement and Professional Community Policies are clear on what is acceptable, what is inappropriate and when we may take action. We find that our members value the constructive conversations they engage in on LinkedIn and will report content that they feel is not appropriate. If a member shares content that violates these policies we will take action, which can include removing content."

Based on a joint study by New York University and Stanford, Facebook interactions with false and hyperpartisan news on its network fell between the end of 2016 and July 2018, but on Twitter, engagement with those stories has increased. A similar study, by Oxford, found that posts touting conspiracy theories and false news items — what researchers called "junk news" — that had previously been shared just by "hard-right" social media users have begun to seep into the conservative mainstream. (The study notes that the same can be said of liberal users, but to a much lesser degree.)

Read the full report about LinkedIn at Buzzfeed.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.

