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LinkedIn Agrees To Block Stalkers
sholto writes "When Buzzfeed wrote about LinkedIn's stalker problem in June, LinkedIn claimed it had enough privacy tools "to effectively minimize unwanted connections". But a petition by a 24-year-old Ohio woman sexually assaulted by her boss and harassed through the network appears to have won the day for privacy advocates. LinkedIn said it was adding a blocking feature to protect members against stalkers. 'I can confirm that we’re in the process of building (a block feature),' responded Paul Rockwell, head of trust and safety at LinkedIn to a post in LinkedIn’s help forum called 'Stalking on LinkedIn'. 'Users on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other sites can easily block other users. LinkedIn appears to be an outlier among other top social media sites,' said petitioner Anna R."
The buzzfeed article appears to be:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/justinesharrock/linkedin-has-a-stalker-problem
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
Until they do, they are not blocking the worst stalker.
I'm not sure how the block is supposed to work. The buzzfeed article is on about how people are able to see where people live etc but I don't see how a block will help.
The block that seems to be being asked for is to block particular people - but anyone who wants to stalk someone can just register with a different account.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
People need to be careful putting pictures on their Linked In account and on their Facebook etc accounts.
Google image search will quickly identify you on all the sites you use the same picture on.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
...for harassment?
Honestly, since this is a "professional" network, maybe there should be a way to note someone's lack of professionalism?
I feel like I need to explain something to people who may not use LinkedIn but use other social networks. LinkedIn has this feature that tells you when your profile has been viewed. If you have the "pro" version, it even tells you WHO has viewed your profile, unless that person has their settings set otherwise. The reason for this is because it is mostly a tool for job seekers and professionals; knowing someone has viewed your profile might be a good conversation starter at that company..
Secondly, large parts of people's profiles (namely, their work history) at LinkedIn are typically public to a large degree. This is because if you have your profile locked down to only friends, then a head hunter will never see you, so it limits the use of the service.
Now what this woman is complaining about is this. The person who harassed her would, every single day, check her LinkedIn profile. This would, in turn, send her an alert, saying that he viewed it.
What she wants LinkedIn to do, is not block him from viewing her profile - that makes no sense because her profile is public. What she wants them to do is stop having the alerts go through. IE - she doesn't seem to care that this guy can see her profile - she just doesn't want to know about it.
I can see both sides of this. From her point of view, this is just another way that this guy is causing her grief. From LinkedIn's point of view, it is a strange request and may be difficult to implement architecturally, because you want the information to remain public, and want the alerts to remain, but only not alert for this specific black-list of people.
Plugging your info into a public website makes that info public.
And therein lies the problem. Allegedly, it's for business and employment "networking". But if no one can see your info, you can't "network" with them and they can't with you. If you're hoping that an employer might come along, see you as a potential candidate and give you a call, then you can't hide your resume under a bushel.
In reality, I don't know if anyone actually finds a job or other opportunity that way. All I ever experienced was seeing current and former colleagues bragging about promotions and other BS. That and requests to "connect" from people I just wasn't that interested in -- it seemed to me that like facebook, they just wanted to have the largest network of friends. I probably don't do networking right, but I couldn't see the value of it. Some people are compelled to use it for work -- so I've heard. And every so often some HR type gets interviewed in Forbes and says something like: "If you're not on LinkedIn, you don't exist."
I am not a crackpot.
Explain what you mean by blocking and how it would be implemented, because it doesn't work the way you seem to think it does at services like say Twitter. When you "block" someone on twitter, it does not stop that person from viewing your public tweets. All it stops them from doing is following you and sending you DM messages. They can still see all your public tweets - because they are PUBLIC. Why on earth would one care if block something to one user that is posted to the public. All they'd need to do to see it is log out of their account!
LinkedIn is in the exact same boat. Your profile on the service is public - otherwise there is no point in using it. So it makes no sense to "block" someone from viewing your public profile. All they would need to do is log out to see it.
Why wouldn't he just create another profile? Maybe one that looks like some generic recruiter at some generic recruiting company. I get notifications about people like that all the time. How can you differentiate between a stalker and the normal creepers/hr agents on linked in?