I was thinking on the same lines but we have Mastodon and Fediverse today that still need to grow beyond the techies of the world and include business folks or even recruiters. A supply and demand use case.
GitHub was a missed opportunity for me. After copilot, I dropped GitHub, both public and private code for serious code contribution, except for some necessary cloning or helping someone. I thought that LinkedIn is the professional forum, and I dropped every other centralized social media. This all eggs in one basket backfired for me
Another name for freelancer. I code and also have experience in managing IT teams. I decided to go solo and attempted to promote my experience via LinkedIn posts instead of GitHub code commits, for example.
The only thing that I was consciously aware of is that I was solely using the web version of LinkedIn on my phone. Last month they restricted my account and they told me that I am using an automation tool. I said that I am not. They did it again few weeks later but then reactivated it once I said I am not. This time, no back and forth. Permanent ban with no explanation.
Plot twist: OP is actually an LLM paired with an internet-connected python state machine, and has now discovered how to post on HN as a possible remedy.
(Sorry it seemed too timely not to make the joke!)
Hope you'll be able to resolve this, or find another way; I do agree that LinkedIn is a monopoly here and you should have recourse as an individual. Scary how Kafka-esque our techno future has become.
That can happen cause it some point some LLM folks are scraping HN. But then, aren’t the majority of LLM owners the same that own the social media products, especially the centralized ones. It is indeed scary where we are heading. Side question, what does OP stand for?
I hear you. I just got officially banned permanently yesterday. I do not use their app except the web. Last month I was kicked off because they claimed that I am using an automation tool, which I don’t. The second time they kicked me out, they asked me to confirm that I do not use an automation all. I said I don’t. Yesterday, I got kicked out and was told to upload a government id such as a driving license. Shortly after, I got a message “ We've deemed the activity in your account is in violation of the LinkedIn User Agreement and Professional Community Policies. Your appeal has been denied and your account has been restricted permanently.
Please see our User Agreement and Professional Community Policies for more information.”
I am not able to talk or ask anyone at LinkedIn why I have been banned. Is it because I don’t use their app? I don’t know.
Good point - hijacked Chrome extensions are a huge, huge security risk, especially because auto-update is on by-default. It's entirely possible every time you login to LinkedIn some dodgy code in your browser is harvesting your cookies to pass to some bots who then scrape LinkedIn.
Auto-updating extensions, and software in general, is a huge risk that people still seem unconcerned about: popular extension authors get approached by scummy ads/data/"analytics" companies all the time to inject spyware or adware into their software (even me: I have a couple of Chrome extensions with only about 20k regular users and I get an email to Chrome Developer Dashboard address every couple of months, asking me to add a small bit of JS which in-turn loads in other arbitrary JS which could be doing anything to my users' browsers - I'm proud to say that I reply to each and every of those e-mails with feigned interest, as the only morally correct course of action here is to waste their time.
Right? Dude, please provide some additional context around your web browser stack because something you’re using is triggering their system. That or you’re click house neighbours are using your wifi.
Why do you assume LinkedIn is correct? I've seen multiple social networks pull the scam where they claim you've violated their ToS only to demand your phone number and other personal information for "verification", and then after they've slurped your data, they don't seem to care about the so-called "violations" anymore.
Twitter pulled that stunt on me: within minutes after creating an account, having done precisely nothing with it yet, they locked me out with some vague complaint about security and suspicious behavior, demanding a phone number. I refused to comply, and several weeks of daily complaints to customer support eventually got the account unlocked, with no explanation; they are clearly just harvesting numbers for the sake of it.
I have private relay enabled via iOS iCloud. I have no extensions installed. Preload top hit is enabled on safari by default. (Not sure if this is could be a factor). I only use safari across my devices. 2FA is enabled for LinkedIn and save password. That is it. I access LinkedIn frequently throughout the day.
I can see that might be it - because it means LinkedIn would be seeing you logging-in from different IP addresses in different geolocations every time (though Apple doesn't let you virtually change-country, I understand in the US it does make it look like you've moved-state).
I also use iCloud Private Relay and LinkedIn seems happy in my case. There has to be more to it and I wish they’d make these kinds of guards more transparent. You can’t just ban people because some crappy algo thinks you’re a bot.
Thank you. I recently dropped my full time job to start a consulting job. I needed LinkedIn for the crucial networking during my early stages. Now I am completely banned without knowing why
Good point. I checked my private relay settings in iOS iCloud. It is set as “maintain general location” along with a description “ Maintain your general location to receive localized content, or enhance your privacy by using a broader IP address based on your country and time zone.
Safari Private Browsing always uses an IP location from your country and time zone.”
I have a built a personal library and read some but not all the books mentioned. However, what I have been enjoying the most is reading computer magazines of the late 70s and early 80s period. The magazines include Creative Computing, Byte, Personal Computing, and Compute! You can still find them for cheap on eBay.
Yeah, that too. However, the actual magazine itself makes you feel that you are in indeed in the 80s. It is like going to a newsstand as a young computer kid and getting the latest copy of the magazine
Yes, but sometimes I wonder if Firefox is still fully open source. I still hate having to do the first thing first when I install the browser is disable Pocket, change the default search from Google to DuckDuckGo (the latter is a recent disappointment). I miss the traditional / classical browsing of the 90s. Heck, I will pay for a browser that brings back the 90s experience.
A program could have all the advertising and tracking in the world and still be fully open source, as long as nothing stops you from creating a fork of it without that stuff.
Yes, but browsing is what we do most of the time. Why can’t we actually pay for one that doesn’t have all the tracking. Each browser claims privacy features, some have more while others claim it is essential not to block certain sites. But they all free and we pay the price for whatever features they impose. Maybe to your point, if I don’t like it then fork the code of browser and then be another offshoot of one of the browsers. Or build one from the scratch and loose hours / days of one’s life with no goal other than making a browser that is customized to my thinking/philosophy about tech
I've been testing out Orion[0] on macOS. It's a WebKit browser built by Kagi[1] (who make a search engine you pay for). I'm hoping the business model works for them, I started paying for the search. The browser is still in beta.
Why can’t we actually pay for one that doesn’t have all the tracking.
Of you could just use Brave.
Lots of online complaints about the founder's personal life/opinion but in terms of privacy, Brave is pretty good. Maybe not the best but pretty good for a solution that you don't need to fiddle with yourself.
Yes. I did use Brave for quite some time until I noticed Firebox becoming more stable. Also, I noticed a better experience with Firefox in Gnome than with Brave.
