The Tedium of LinkedIn, The Toxicity of Twitter And The Opportunity In The Middle.
Twitter have intentionally fuelled their rage and toxicity engine, but the blame for LinkedIn's dull discourse lies with us...
This week I was struck by these tweets by Rani Molla, a senior reporter at VOX and Recode…
It occurred to me that LinkedIn could be the ideal social media platform, but instead, it’s largely a wasteland when it comes to personality, humour, and crucially, fun. If we’re all honest with ourselves 80% of our feeds are links that showcase our employers in a good light to impress would-be clients or people chasing referral bonuses by endlessly spamming links to job openings. To any of my own connections I sincerely apologise. LinkedIn is what it is, but what it is, isn’t fun. Perhaps the best thing you can say about LinkedIn is that it’s useful. At its worst LinkedIn is so cringe that dedicated Twitter accounts exist on other platforms just to highlight the awful nonsense you 100% expect to find there…
On the other end of the spectrum, we have Twitter, which is or at least was supposed to be fun. I joined Twitter in 2008 and back then it was fun. Since those early days the introduction of Moments, a renewed editorial focus on current events and the general amplification of myriad culture wars have given rise to unseen levels of toxicity. This might not have gotten so unbearable if it wasn’t for the fact that Twitter doesn’t pursue a Real-Name policy for usernames. I appreciate that anonymity has its value and in many ways is needed, but on Twitter, the ecosystem is undeniably clogged with burner accounts and fake profiles endlessly barking out extreme agendas in deafening attempts to drown each other out. Venturing into the replies of any vaguely interesting or popular tweet is a one-way ticket to madness, frustration or anger. Social networks are in the engagement business and nothing drives engagement like rage: Put simply, they are financially incentivised into upsetting us every single day.
John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Dickwad Theory elegantly explains the algebra of Twitter…
By contrast let's turn our attention back to LinkedIn. On LinkedIn we have an incredibly high percentage of quality accounts: By which I mean low-to-zero levels of anonymity, much higher relative accountability and an eco-system that can support quality discussion of thoughts and ideas. From a product perspective LinkedIn, and by extension Microsoft, have unbelievably fertile soil, but from a culture and personality perspective they have precious little and the needed change in behaviour simply isn’t going to come from the users. We are an object in motion and we are going to stay in motion.
I see an interesting opportunity for Microsoft to build a companion destination to LinkedIn, one that can act as a direct threat to Twitter with a unique focus on accountability, empathy and measured discussion. This is something Twitter would struggle to parry in anything approximating speed. Remember when all the MAGA lunatics said they were abandoning Twitter to go to Parlour and we all breathed a sigh of relief? Imagine that exodus but instead, it’s the sane folks who leave and commit to good behaviour and accountability. I can see the celebrities and high profile Twitter users making the journey too, excited to escape their scariest followers as they so clearly are.
This new platform need only be a simple newsfeed UI. LinkedIn could instantly populate our profiles with the existing information we already gave them. Perhaps simply creating an environment and context that doesn’t feel like being interviewed by 300 people at once at all times will allow us all to loosen up and maybe even enjoy ourselves online, free from rage and angry bots. Wouldn’t that be novel?
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