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January 26, 2024 3:46 AM

It's hard to estimate how many of LinkedIn's 1 billion reported members are using the site to find love.
posted by cupcakeninja (31 comments total)

We use LinkedIn a lot and the connection requests, InMail and job applications from obviously fake profiles with pictures of beautiful women are an annoyance. I assume it’s 80% a different venue for standard Facebook romance fraud, maybe 10% some kind of business fraud angle (socially hacking a company through its lonely or horny dudes), and 10% prostitutes.
posted by MattD at 4:52 AM on January 26 [7 favorites]

I was wondering why I was getting weird messages and searches from people outside my industry. Now I can despair at the world just a little bit more.
posted by corb at 4:54 AM on January 26 [15 favorites]

Yes, it's unsettling. I saw this article and went looking and found that this has been going on for long enough that people were irritated about it enough to gripe online over a decade ago. So, I assume that another part of the story is the increased ubiquity of LinkedIn and its use for things (not just dating) other than work, with maybe a side order of explicit or tacit dissatisfaction with major social media sites.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:08 AM on January 26

Time to launch a site that combines business networking and dating for those with unusual desires! We’ll call it KinkedIn.
posted by Ishbadiddle at 5:25 AM on January 26 [36 favorites]

"I just have to repost this article I read on Forbes.com about the productivity boost an open-plan office model has over the traditional cube-farm because it shows the passion I have for increasing productivity in the workspace!"

Hubba-hubba.
posted by SoberHighland at 5:36 AM on January 26 [8 favorites]

Luckily for me I do not have this problem because LinkedIn locked me out until I can provide a government ID matching the name on my account, thanks transphobic policy!
posted by an octopus IRL at 5:49 AM on January 26 [22 favorites]

The funny thing is that LinkedIn is the only social networking site that allows you to see when someone has looked at your profile.

In that way it has more in common with dating sites (which offer the same feature).
posted by treblekicker at 5:55 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]

Time to launch a site that combines business networking and dating for those with unusual desires! We’ll call it KinkedIn.

"LockedIn," surely.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:03 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]

I get messages that feel like a come on but are not?

"Last night, I had a dream about you. In this dream, I'm dancing right beside you 🎶 to the rhythm of professional success at some contracting company. Today, I'm reaching out to share some cool Java/Angular opportunities to make this dream come true."

"Why don’t you play the game?🎶"

"Let me know if you’re interested so we can get started 😉.."

I am amused, but can see it could get irritating.
posted by garbanzilla at 6:14 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]

The funny thing is that LinkedIn is the only social networking site that allows you to see when someone has looked at your profile.

Friendster used to do this! Well, it didn't always do that. They implemented it as a new feature, and turned it on one day without giving anyone warning. It was a fun surprise! And by fun surprise, I mean absolute shitshow. It was a total mess.

Anyway, in case you're wondering why most sites don't do that.
posted by phooky at 6:17 AM on January 26 [2 favorites]

I always chalked up flirting on LinkedIn to a combination of horny men who hit on people everywhere, even when it's not appropriate, and scammers targeting the gullible.

So like there are normal people who do this?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:19 AM on January 26 [20 favorites]

We need LinkedIn romance novels, “His tall figure emerged from the balcony, I could tell he took advantage of the HR GymPass benefits. I noticed his Tumi bag, what was that? A BlackBerry? U shuddered in excitement. He came from behind me, may I rub your shoulders? He said, and then noted he’d have to send a notice to HR after this. Why I muttered m, lips quivering. You’re not a client but if I saw you at a conference it might be a conflict of interest. His laptop was open, I could see the IT barcode tag on there and his large AR report in Oracle. He knew protocol said to close and lock laptops when other people in the room but this night was to be about breaking the rules…”
posted by geoff. at 6:38 AM on January 26 [30 favorites]

I always chalked up flirting on LinkedIn to a combination of horny men who hit on people everywhere, even when it's not appropriate, and scammers targeting the gullible.

So like there are normal people who do this?

As a man, I get invites from what look like scammers of some type (typically very minimal profiles with a photo of a conventionally beautiful young woman) but never with messages. My partner gets a lot of messages and requests, always from (supposedly) ruggedly-handsome, age-appropriate men with more fleshed-out profiles. Our assumption is that almost all of the ones she gets are romance scams, but it isn't obviously clear to me what the scams would be from the requests I get. Perhaps a mix of romance scams and some kind of financial/cryptocurrency maybe?

But neither of us have ever gotten horny messages that appear personalized and from a real person.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:39 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]

Ctrl-F for "harassment" yields zero results.

If you are reading these mefi comments before reading the article, let me save you a few minutes: There's nothing new about people using a website to inappropriately proposition women.

The number one unwritten rule about dating: both parties must know it is a date.
posted by AlSweigart at 6:59 AM on January 26 [11 favorites]

I have issued an attempted booty call via LinkedIn, though it was to someone I know (in my friend group, not my professional network).

That was a year and a half ago; I'm in a much different place now, but he just reached out to me last week to see if that offer was still on the table. Buddy that ship sailed so long ago, it's been on several other voyages in the meantime.

(I consider myself in the general vicinity of normal, though I will cop to a tendency to do things for the bit.)
posted by The Vintner of Our Disco Tent at 7:04 AM on January 26 [7 favorites]

horny men who hit on people everywhere,

See also, men hitting on scheduling bots.

The only messages I get on Linkedin are programmers from India who clearly want to proposition me to outsource our software development projects (mmm, so hot), and marketing people who have something to say about podcasts, short-form video, AI, or any other number of buzzwords they can charge money for (ooh, baby, tell me more about using AI in TikTok to sell my stuff based your vague idea of what my business does).

I am extremely cautious over the 'see who clicked on you' -- even in the free accounts it is possible to turn this off (they still see the notification but no details of who it was), but then you also don't get to see who clicked on you. I turned it back on a couple years ago when I was looking for jobs, and now if there's somebody I want to see I just redo the search in an Incognito window and I get about 1/2 of their profile, which is usually enough to glean whatever I wanted from it. Here, too, when I get a notification of a profile view it's mostly people who want my money...but there's a IT director at one of our big customers who hits my profile every couple months...I wonder what's up with that?

In other weird stuff: I recently got a friend request from a guy...who I thought I had friended years ago? After accepting his request, he sent me a direct message, and the chat history showed things from 2013. So, either he dumped me or I dumped him, or LinkedIn (like has happened to me on other platforms) randomly drops connections.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:24 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]

I signed up with LI right after I lost my job 12 years ago. But I never really used it. And lazy me hasn’t killed the account. Every once in awhile I get a series of emails telling me that somebody looked at my profile or sent me a message. I assumed it was just LI trying to get me to log in to an account I never log into. So I didn’t bother to look. But with this news, maybe my suspicions kept me from meeting the love of my life?
posted by njohnson23 at 8:04 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]

I post about cybersecurity and IoT on LinkedIn and no one has ever come on to me. Should I add emacs vs. vi?
posted by tommasz at 8:11 AM on January 26 [7 favorites]

I feel extraordinarily privileged due to a bunch of things, but one of them is the fact that even as a software developer of 20 years, I've never had any need (nor any desire) for a LinkedIn account. I got my current job at a healthy, slowly growing, privately owned SMB company in the early 2010s, and barring any massive upheavals, I'm likely to want to stay here until retirement. I'm not networked in any way in any direction, the only social media account I have or want is a fake name profile for FB Marketplace, and you wouldn't be able to convince me that this isn't the ideal state of existing in the 2020s.
posted by jklaiho at 8:21 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]

both parties must know it is a date.

I apply for form WLW709, colloquially known as 'oblivious lesbian' exemption, citing the large body of anecdata to support that this goal, while undeniably laudable, is not always practicable or achievable in real world outside the office situations, no matter what management and communication tactics are employed. Thank you.
posted by Jacen at 8:30 AM on January 26 [10 favorites]

Hmm. I'm definitely not an online dating app sort of person, but if I was that sort of person, especially if I had marriageability and not a quick hook-up in mind... maybe LinkedIn should start an official dating option.

• If you don't click to allow the dating option, people know that you don't consent to anyone hitting on you, that you're saying "I'm not interested" up front, and that they'll lose their account or be reported to their employer or whatever if you click the Report button.
• If you do click to allow it, you go to some separate interface and look for that haggard middle manager you dream of.

posted by pracowity at 8:35 AM on January 26

If you don't click to allow the dating option, people know that you don't consent to anyone hitting on you, that you're saying "I'm not interested" up front

They already have "I'm Hiring" and "Open to Work" flag options -- which also put a little frame on your profile pic, they can add a "I'm Down To Smash" one for the dating pool. Or something more professional I suppose, it is LinkedIn and all.

I suppose "Open To Work" and "I'm Single" set simultaneously would allow some confusing conversations.

(Otherwise, even without the flags, I'd assume "not available for dating" is the default, but also I'm neither pushy about getting dates nor fighting off advances so I'm blissfully invisible for this issue)
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:43 AM on January 26

When I was about to lose my last job, signed up for LinkedIn. This was a decade or more ago.

All I get now from LI is people wanting to talk to me about "franchise opportunities". Yeah, no...

I would rather have fake hot women bots messaging me than whatever it is I am getting...
posted by Windopaene at 9:06 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]

I post about cybersecurity and IoT on LinkedIn and no one has ever come on to me. Should I add emacs vs. vi?

A belt-and-suspenders approach, you mean?
posted by mhoye at 9:13 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]

LinkedIn should start an official dating option.

This sounds terrible at a glance, but I feel like there's the seed crystal of a great idea here, as long as it's easy to express intent and the punishments for crossing those lines are severe enough. The old Steam idea of hellbanning people for cheating - that is, you don't stop them from cheating, you just put them all on servers populated only by other cheaters - seems like the right approach here.

So, yes, LinkedIn for dating, where you can click a checkbox saying "no I don't want that" and anyone who crosses that line gets put on a second, shadow version of LinkedIn populated only by people trying to use LinkedIn for dating.

(Sounds great!) (I'll get back to you.)
posted by mhoye at 9:26 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]

This is hilarious timing; i just deleted my LinkedIn account this week.

I joined LinkedIn in the 2000s as a career resource. It gave me a few insights about things, companies to look up, and a few coworkers and associates to follow. But other than a place to seek info from, it was never instrumental in my career path.

I'm retired now. Reading job ads still makes my stomach hurt. The few new connection requests I get are from financial advisors. And of course an endless stream of "get one month of premium for free!". I've always felt that I shouldn't have to pay to make myself more available to recruiters. They should pay, cos they stand to make the money from placing me.

This month I've had a couple emails from LinkedIn, spawned by password reset requests originating in Kentucky. I complained to LinkedIn; their only advice was to change my pw ASAP, or to use a different email address.

And they have been hacked and data snagged; their data are apparently in this recent massive find.

Yeah, no. I'm done. Not much value to me any more, to being there, and it's just another attack surface. And no-one hit on me there, anyway. Does that come with premium?
posted by Artful Codger at 9:30 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]

If you think looking for love on LinkedIn is bad, try finding a job on Tinder.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 10:39 AM on January 26 [9 favorites]

People do look for jobs on tinder...
posted by thegirlwiththehat at 10:55 AM on January 26

Yeah, I have seen folks on the dating apps who seem to be on there solely to drum up customers for their small business. It's an interesting marketing strategy, but I bet it works.
posted by The Vintner of Our Disco Tent at 10:57 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]

both parties must know it is a date.

Cue the best Venn diagram in history.
posted by The Bellman at 11:19 AM on January 26 [21 favorites]

I like that in phooky's linked WSJ article about Friendster, WSJ reports about a hamster named Colonel Angus, without even batting an eye.
posted by xedrik at 10:08 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]