Social networks have faced multiple problems in recent years due to the political content that is shared on them. Some, like Facebook, have even had to pay millions in fines for scandals related to this issue, and, in general, none of them knows very well how to deal with certain extreme messages. For this reason, LinkedIn has decided to pass the ball to the user's court and is going to incorporate a button that will block, if the user activates it, all the publications that have to do with politics in his feed.
This has been advanced by the CEO of the social network, Ryan Roslansky, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. The director explained that in recent years they have received a lot of criticism from users for the increase in political content that was taking place on a network that is fundamentally aimed at establishing professional relationships. For this reason, they decided to create a button with these characteristics, a solution with which they avoid the debate that has been going on in recent years about whether or not these platforms should proactively moderate certain content.
This function has been launched in the testing phase in the United States. The journalists of the Wall Street Journal have tested it and assure that, although it is not perfect and sometimes some publication related to politics sneaks in, it eliminates this type of content in a more or less acceptable way from its feed.
LinkedIn already had some features to communicate to its systems what content the user prefers to see, but nothing as refined to date as this new button. Thus, those who do not want certain topics to appear can click on the three points that appear at the top right of the posts on this social network, click 'I do not want to see this in the drop-down menu and give a reason among the several possible ones, such as I've seen too many posts on this topic' or 'I'm not interested in this topic'.
The new function, on the other hand, will have to be activated from the 'Settings and privacy' tab of the user's profile drop-down menu, where the 'Do you want to see political content in your feed?' button will be located. that can be activated or deactivated at will.
LinkedIn makes it easy
The initiative that LinkedIn has taken is relatively easy given its nature. Of all the large social networks that exist, it is the only one that is focused exclusively on the workplace, so the decision to introduce a button like this is, in his opinion, perfectly justified: its users enter to make professional connections or look for a job. , not to talk about politics. Something like this on platforms focused on leisure and entertainment would be much more controversial.
On the other hand, an important part of the business of social networks such as Facebook or Twitter is related to political debate, since many users use them to find out about these issues. And if several of them engage in discussions that make them constantly enter them to read, comment and respond, the platforms benefit because they increase their traffic numbers and the chances that they see advertising messages.
LinkedIn, on the other hand, bases its business on purely professional information and advertising, as well as job offers and tools for human resources technicians. Its managers know that most of its users do not enter the platform to find out about politics or debate about it, so they can incorporate a button like this without fear of losing visits and advertising revenue.
A controversial issue
Social networks have been facing for many years the question of how to manage certain messages on their platforms, such as those of extreme ideologies, those that incite hatred or disinformation, without harming their business model.
At first, the networks opted for the free circulation of everything that did not constitute a crime, at least in appearance, but little by little the seriousness of certain events (such as the assault on the United States Capitol, in which the misinformation that circulated through these platforms played an important role) and the regulatory and sanctioning intervention of different governments have been forcing them to take a more active role in controlling what is published and shared.
Despite this, misinformation and controversial messages continue to circulate through many of them, and the issue seems far from resolved.