Obey the Technocrats, or else
On living as an unemployed pariah after being permanently banned from LinkedIn and why this should scare everyone
Until March 2023, I’d never heard of the term “shadowban,” and the thought that I could be suddenly and without warning, explanation, or recourse be permanently cut off from my professional network, over 15 years of my own written content, and the ability to connect with current and new clients and employers had never crossed my mind. But about 3 days before my move to Portugal, it happened to me—I got permanently banned from LinkedIn.
Months later, I’m still shocked by what happened, and now facing financial instability due to the egregious abuse of corporate power. It’s been such an emotionally fraught incident that I’ve dreaded writing about it, much as I know how important it is to do so, because it brings a lot of painful emotions and rage to the surface to even think about the injustice of what happened.
Before I delve into the specifics of my forced exile from LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft, by the way, which is one of my off and on clients since 2017) and what this means for society in general, I believe it’s important to give you some background about myself to show how incredibly absurd it is that I, a highly respectable member of my community, was permanently banned from LinkedIn, with the point being that if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone, including you. So a bit about me:
I served on the board of directors of Planned Parenthood of Eastern Washington and North Idaho and various other boards and committees over the years.
I co-founded and led a community-based secular 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Tri-City Freethinkers, for a decade.
I was, at the time of my removal from the platform, working on a project about professional networking (oh, the irony) for Harvard Business Publishing,1 for whom I authored Stop Asking Neurodivergent People to Change the Way They Communicate.
I was my former county’s chairperson of the Democratic party.
I ran for the Washington State Legislature three times.
I’ve been a guest speaker, guest columnist, podcast guest, forum moderator, activism coordinator, issue advocate, grassroots lobbyist, and more, but perhaps most ironically, I was interviewed in 2022 as a subject matter expert on diversity, equity, and inclusion for a book written by a LinkedIn marketing employee that is due out this summer.
I have spent many sleepless nights speculating about what thing or combination of things I could have done that warranted my being permanently banned from LinkedIn, but in the end, I have no way of knowing. And that is quite possibly the most troubling part about the whole thing. (But, as you will see, I do have my suspicions.) After going through the process of uploading my ID and appealing the decision, the final word came from Alfred, who would only say that my account was permanently restricted “Due to the number and/or the severity of these violations.” What violations? I don’t know.
What I can tell you are some of the things that were happening on LinkedIn around this time:
Fake accounts posting AI-generated content and content blatantly plagiarized from actual human users seemed to be proliferating on the platform. Trying to report them was like playing Whack-a-Mole and was ultimately futile because LinkedIn responded every single time that the accounts were not in violation of community standards. It didn’t matter how much I showed evidence that the accounts were fake (I kept all the screen shots I obtained as evidence) and stealing other people’s posts, their moderators either lacked the intellectual capacity to distinguish between fake and real people or worse, they did not care.
Transphobic posts and comments were running rampant on the platform and LinkedIn moderators were repeatedly telling those of us who reported the comments for violating community standards that they weren’t, in fact, violating community standards. But try to use their own logic against them, and you will be found to be in violation.
In February, I received a nasty, harassing DM from a former despicable coworker of mine that I hadn’t heard from since he got let go in 2017. I reported it to LinkedIn and they did nothing whatsoever. Not satisfied with their inaction, I then posted a screen shot of his DM to me with a message about how it was unconscionable that LinkedIn was ignoring the abusive user and they removed my post with a warning to me that I was violating community standards. I appealed and eventually someone there came to their senses and restored the post. They made no apology, by the way, and they still did absolutely nothing to address the harassment. I literally missed a day of work due to this incident because I was sobbing and distraught by how incredibly bonkers the whole situation was.
As laws targeting transgender people were ramping up in the U.S., many trans professionals began to speak out about what this was doing to the wellbeing of trans employees and employees with trans kids. And more and more of us started to notice that our posts about this were being suppressed by the algorithm, something I would later come to learn has a term: shadowbanning. I could post about something uncontroversial and get 50 reactions, but if I posted anything that used the word “trans” in it I’d get one or two reactions. This prompted a post from me 3 days before I was permanently banned from the platform:
And trans folx aren’t the only ones who have been complaining about being shadowbanned. I learned that this is something that’s been experienced for awhile now by Black DEI practitioners as documented here, here, and in many other places. (And it’s not just LinkedIn, of course, but pretty much all social media has been guilty of biased algorithms silencing the voices of marginalized people, including Instagram and Facebook, like this disabled trans advocate and this Black trans woman.) And I would later learn that shadowbanning can be a warning sign that you are in danger of receiving a permanent ban.
Now, in the weeks leading up to this, I had remarked to my fiancée that the overall tone of LinkedIn posts seemed to be dramatically shifting. It had gone from sterile, fluorescent-bulbs-in-the-cubicle-farm vibes only to “OMG, the orcas are destroying our ship!” vibes in a very short period of time. She speculated that as Twitter had started hindenburging around that time that its passengers of all ideological stripes needed new outlets to air their grievances, and so LinkedIn, for better or worse, became one of those platforms.
This is probably a good point to mention that its because of the increased level of harassing behavior, hateful posts, and a platform choosing to ignore the dumpsterfire in their living room that I chose to change my profile picture from one showing my face to a queer Jolly Roger avatar (what can I say, I really like gay pirates), which at the time I didn’t realize was against their terms of service. You must show your real face, it turns out, but if that was the reason they eventually banned me, seems like some pretty serious overkill, especially since they could have simply let me know and I could have begrudgingly uploaded my face again, even if it did potentially endanger me.
Another possible strike against me, but one that happened many months before all of this, is that I changed my first name to my initials because JD is the name I, an agender person, use both professionally and personally and is even the name I am published under in Harvard Business Review. Now, technically this puts me in violation of their terms of service because they require their users to use their legal name, and though JD is based on my legal initials and I used my real legal last name, when they required me to upload my ID to prove I’m me, JD does not match the legal first name on that ID. But since they didn’t give me any reason for the ban, nor did they allow me to offer any defense (Of what? Who knows?!), I can only surmise this wasn’t the reason.
No, I can only conclude that they find mouthy transphobic bigots to be more profitable at the end of the day than a mouthy agender, queer, neurodivergent, disabled atheist. And that brings me to remind or inform people that many corporations sided with Hitler in pre-WWII Germany. I was going to go into the history of this here, but this newsletter is already really long and plenty of actual historians have documented this fact, like here and here and... oh hell, just search the topic in any browser, it’s very well-known history that fascists and corporations go together like peanut butter and jelly. Hell, Netflix even has an entire show called Transatlantic in which that’s a key plot point and you really should go check it out. It’s amazing (but also… support the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikers!)
Lest you think it’s not a huge deal to get banned from LinkedIn, let me tell you some of the ways this has affected me beyond the emotional affront. I am facing ongoing financial punishment and could potentially face deportation. You see, since LinkedIn has become so globally ubiquitous in the job seeking and professional networking space, it turns out that not having a presence there can make keeping a roof over your head a lot harder.
I need to inject some relevant back story here for context. In another egregious turn of events, shortly after I moved to Portugal, my previously mentioned client decided to end my contract with a month’s notice and then management proceeded to treat me so unprofessionally that I left of my own accord 3 weeks before the end. Every client I’ve had since 2017 I connected with via LinkedIn, so with that possibility taken from me, I’ve had to turn to other means of finding my next paying gig. But it turns out that no matter where you go to job hunt, pretty much every company asks for a link to your LinkedIn profile. In fact, a good many online applications have that as a required field and you cannot submit an application without including the link. I’ve even found blogs written by recruiters who warn that not having a presence on LinkedIn is a red flag to many would-be employers. (Also, can I just say how uncomfortable and embarrassing it’s been to meet professionals who ask me to connect on LinkedIn and I must find some painfully awkward, brief way to explain that I can’t do that.)
Furthermore, in the months leading up to my international move, I’d networked with several professionals in the EU with whom I’d had conversations on LinkedIn about meeting up once I got settled in to collaborate on projects, etc., only I didn’t have the foresight to get their off-LinkedIn contact information since I had no idea what was about to happen, so those opportunities are lost, too. I’d also been asked to be a moderator of a multi-day neurodiversity forum held on LinkedIn, but I couldn’t participate! I could list several other examples of the many ways that this has hampered my ability to make a living and be an engaged, productive member of my community, both offline and on, but again, this has already gotten so long, and I haven’t even told you about how devastating it was to lose over 15 years of the content I’d written on LinkedIn!
“Well, why not just create a new account?” you might be wondering. Believe me, I did. The first account I created immediately after getting the email that my appeal failed. I used my full legal name that time. I had just started to painstakingly recreate my network from what people I could recall from memory when I got blocked from that account, as well. A couple of months later, after getting settled in Portugal and losing my job, I decided to give it another go, this time using a fake name since using my real one hadn’t worked out (recall, they made me upload my ID). I didn’t bother trying to add anyone to my network, I just wanted to be able to see job listings. But that account got blocked, too. (Which is really pretty creepy when you think about it, because it makes one wonder what kind of under-the-hood techy voodoo are they using to connect that new account to a formerly banned user?)
After my ban, I wrote to ProPublica and the ACLU (update: I have now also written my U.S. Senators, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation) but what with the U.S. in a perpetual state of crisis right now, everyone has their standing-up-to-bullies hands full. I started searching to find out what others have experienced or done, and boy oh boy did I find a lot of other people have also been surprised to wake up one day and find themselves permanently banned, like this person who wrote about their experience of getting banned from LinkedIn on Vice and this person who also wrote about why this is a really bad thing. There’s even a Facebook group that formed where the outcasts started discussing a possible class action lawsuit, but it didn’t seem to go anywhere. And good luck finding an attorney with the resources to take on LinkedIn (again, owned by Microsoft). And the only one who wins in a class action lawsuit is the law firm, in any case.
But folks, we cannot allow them to get away with this! When a private company performs a vital public function, as LinkedIn clearly does, it is imperative that they not be allowed to violate the fundamental rights of the citizens of the countries in which they operate. LinkedIn is currently violating my right to find and engage in employment, and as I’ve now been unemployed for well over a month and I’m watching my bank account dwindle, I’m getting increasingly anxious. And it’s not just the money, though that is more than enough to cause me to lose sleep at night, it has a high potential of causing me and my family members to be denied legal residence in Portugal when we show up to our appointments next month with Portuguese border control and cannot prove we have the foreign-sourced income required for our visas to be approved, on which our legal right to remain in the country hinges. I’m genuinely scared right now because it is not an exaggeration when I say that I’d rather die than be sent back to the United States.
A couple of days ago, I watched a video on Instagram posted by Perfect Union in which they interviewed Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson and I had a lightbulb moment that led up to me finally sitting down to begin to write about this yesterday. You see, back in my politician days, I actually met AG Ferguson on a few occasions, and though I doubt he’d remember me, I always remembered him as seeming to be one of the actual good ones as politicians go. He was an inspirational figure for me then, going after the powerful corporate abusers to protect the Average Joe. So, after I’ve finished writing this, I’m going to be reaching out to him. I don’t know why I didn’t think of him sooner except that the feeling of ick I got from running with the political crowd in Washington made me want to lock away memories of those days and throw away the key. LinkedIn/Microsoft is even headquartered in Washington State (edit: LinkedIn is actually headquartered in California, but its parent company, Microsoft, is still headquartered in Washington), so if anyone can bring these monopolistic abusers of power to heel, it’s Ferguson. (Update: Ferguson's office never responded.)
Whew! I finally wrote the piece that I’ve been putting off for months because it’s so overwhelming to think about. There are probably details I’ve forgotten about, but it’s already felt like such a complicated tale to tell that I’m going to finally call it good and hit that publish button. If you’ve made it through to the end, thanks for hearing me out.
Be careful on LinkedIn, especially if you start noticing you are being shadowbanned. Back up your content and connections elsewhere, because they won’t give you access to your own data when they unceremoniously boot you for reasons they won’t even tell you about. Join the fight against the corporate and political forces that want to keep you so scared of homelessness and starvation that you’ll be a compliant little worker bee. Support striking workers. Join a union. Take care of each other. And if you can, become a paying subscriber (or you can make a one-time contribution) and help save a queer, trans family. I will keep doing everything I can to pay the kindness forward.
In solidarity and love,
JD in Portugal
As of a few days ago, I’m finally allowed to disclose who my client was. Some of my readers may know that the middleman hiring agency had inserted a clause in my new contract (that I was not in a position to argue against) that barred me from disclosing who I worked for for a period of 2 years after the end of the contract. I have since been formally released from that clause, documented in writing.
I have hated LinkedIn from the beginning. I'm old enough to remember when networking meant meeting real people, face-to-face. When I see LinkedIn profiles with 500 or 1000 connections, I say, "Yeah, right, whatever, you know them all, right?" I've barely used the platform and mostly turned down those looking to connect, because guess what, "I don't know you!" I got booted from Twitter for suggesting George Santos should bleed from his eyes, a complete sarcasm, duh. It was to a third party, not the admirable worm himself. Whatever, with the sociopath who runs that platform now, I am happy not to be there. So here we are on Substack, a platform I'm enjoying, but I'm also extremely aware I could suffer your LinkedIn experience by a writing something offends someone's sensibility at any time. Digital is vapor that can disappear at the press of a button. At least the Nazis had to physically burn books to make them disappear. Get yourself a nice simple job in a wine store where the shopkeeper simply interviews you in person. I did. Sure, the pay is lousy, but the stress is zero, and you meet people, not pixels on a screen. You can network with them. So there's my tirade. Best of luck, JD.
I am so sorry you are being put through this.
I've been put in Instagram comment jail for using the acronym BS in a comment about an ad. I'm betting LinkedIn has a list of banned words, including pedos, groomers, and asshole, and that's what got you banned. Their "safety" consultants don't actually read content, they just run the filter for naughty words. So basically, it's A-okay to say evil things so long as they're phrased in a way to avoid the bad words database. Okay to run deceptive ads and scams, but use a bad word, and you're punished.