LinkedIn Corporation
LinkedIn is a business and employment-focused social media platform.
Last Update:
Platform Policies:
Optional identity verification badge requires users to submit a government-issued ID. Account recovery requires ID to match account name.
“The verification badge on your profile indicates that you were able to confirm specific information about your account. Having verified information helps provide authenticity signals to others that you’re who you say you are. Seeing verified information on others’ profiles helps foster a trusted community so you can make more informed decisions around connecting with other professionals.”
“LinkedIn members have the option to verify their identity by uploading a government ID and/or taking a live selfie using certain trusted partners. These trusted partners (and their authorized processors) have sole access to such data and it’s deleted according to the applicable trusted partner’s privacy policy. LinkedIn does not receive any biometric data about LinkedIn members from these partners.”
Note: If users are locked out of account, a real ID is needed for verification.
No policy prohibiting targeted misgendering or deadnaming.
LinkedIn does not currently (April 2024) have a policy specifying that deadnaming and misgendering falls under community guidelines protections against harassment.
Personal demographic information used for gendered personalized ad targeting and research.
“LinkedIn may infer your age and your gender based on information in your profile. For example, we may infer your gender based on your first name or on the pronouns used when others recommend you for skills. We may infer your age based on when you graduated from school. We do not infer age or gender based on profile photos.”
“We use inferred age and gender to provide aggregated insights about LinkedIn audiences for LinkedIn members, our customers and partners, and to personalize content such as ads. You can opt out of this targeting in your settings. We use such aggregated insights to conduct research and development concerning, for example, fairness and diversity in its services. Please note we don’t disclose the age or gender we have inferred for you as an individual member to others.”
Users are not obligated to disclose their gender or pronouns.
“This feature is optional, so if you aren’t comfortable displaying your gender pronouns, there’s no need to do so.”
Users can display pronouns on profile.
“We’re committed to building a more diverse and inclusive platform, and gender pronouns play an important role in creating a welcoming community for members of all gender identities. Now, you can add your gender pronouns to your profile to let others know how to refer to you. This is optional, and if you choose to display your gender pronouns, you’ll be able to control who sees them.”
“Based on your visibility choices, your gender pronouns will appear next to your name on LinkedIn in three places: your profile, the feed (whenever you share or comment on a post), and in messages.”
Note: You can select which pronouns and who can view them. Current options include he/him, she/her, they/them, and “custom”. If you choose the pronouns she/her or he/him from the pronouns dropdown (options available in select regions only), they may use this selection to infer your gender.
Specific policies against content that promotes discrimination based on gender identity.
“We don’t allow content that attacks, denigrates, intimidates, dehumanizes, incites or threatens hatred, violence, prejudicial or discriminatory action against individuals or groups because of their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, age, or disability status.”
“Examples of hateful and derogatory content”
- Misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals
- Slurs and pejoratives used to demean others on the basis of their inherent traits
- Calls for exclusion or banishment of a specific group based on inherent traits
Users can update name with optional fields for ‘former name’ or ‘additional name’.
“You can change how your name is displayed on your profile.”
Note: Users who do not want to announce a name change may want to change visibility settings by turning off “share profile updates with your network”.
“You can add an additional name (former name, maiden name, or nickname) on your profile.”
Note: Public profiles don’t display the Additional name field, so searches done with search engines like Google or Yahoo! using this information will not yield any results.
Contributor Notes:
“LinkedIn does not properly moderate. I see transphobic posts and comments all the time”
– Anonymous Contributor
Platform Environment:
Users report instances of being banned from the platform when they are unable to verify their identities with a government-issued ID that does not match the account name. These bans are usually temporary however are disruptive and necessitates that the user be outed to support staff.
Platform environment may enable transphobic practices by employers and recruiters.