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| Raising Awareness About an Issue on LinkedIn |
"Today I had a gentleman send me a message to say he was 'fascinated by my profile and could we go outside of the professional sphere to something more personal' he then went on to give me all of his personal contact details and asked me to get in touch if I was single. This sort of contact was not what I joined Linked In for...I reported him to LinkedIn and they are investigating it further. He messaged me once more before I blocked him starting his message with 'hi pretty'. I hope LinkedIn will act appropriately and either give him a stern warning or remove him completely."
and
"I'm glad I'm not the only one who is experiencing this--I thought I was just paranoid. A few weeks ago there seemed to be a surge of them, all weird dating-ish requests. I used to just accept invites to connect; after that week, no more."
I suspected that this may be something hidden and more widespread and indeed I have found it be so. Have you received inappropriate messages like this? This may also be something even more sinister and could be a phishing scam tactic. If you have been a victim of this, please block and report the offending connections. Please take this action to ensure it does not happen to others. I am also collating a list of reported incidents in the rest of this post, below, if you wish to relate your own stories to add to it.
"I have had such an experience and even wrote a publication about my experience beginning of December (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141205150520-20339774-non-au-harc%C3%A8lement-sur-les-r%C3%A9seaux-sociaux?trk=prof-post).
For me, Google+ is probably the worst because I have all these men just
adding me to their circles without any apparent common interests. When
you have around 550 people in your circles and Google+ shows you that
your profile has been viewed more than 1.2 million times, you can't help
but feeling stalked. The event that ticked me off was a message
received in LinkedIn from a man asking to conect so we could get
acquainted. My reply was very direct, stating that I was on LinkedIn for
business purposes only. He agreed so I accepted the connection request.
He then sent me another message asking to have my Facebook or Skype ID
so we could discuss ''more freely''. I was so angry that I removed him
and did not bother to reply. From the comments I received in French, it
seems it's really getting to be a problem for all women. A friend of
mine even mentioned receiving photos of men's intimate parts... :-("
"I've been on LinkedIn since 2008. I have definitely been approached 6-7
times over the last 2 years. Only one gentleman was courteous to
discontinue his dialogue and the persistent others I simply removed from
my network. I have not had issues in forums or such, just through
network connection requests. As a group owner, we had a terribly
inappropriate profile request membership recently, but that is 1 of
150,000. The nudity was highly inappropriate and appeared to be a
retaliation of a unrequited relationship. As in our immediate
surroundings, take control, know your surroundings and immediately
report and delete the miscreants. Too often we fail to see the potential
danger that lies ahead trying to be polite, social and expanding our
careers.
"
"My wife also received a rather 'friendly' LinkedIn connection request and subsequent message recently."
"I've definitely had ambiguous contact requests, where I wasn't sure if the person was interested in me personally or professionally but I suspected the former."
"This is a recurring problem and should be addressed with a message to the LinkedIn Trust and Safety arm of customer service. The more documentation you can provide, the better. I have found that this is ONE area where LinkedIn sits up and takes notice of a particular type of problem. It is associated with stalking and is a form of harassment that nobody needs happen to them."
"I personally have not but two of my female coaching clients have in the past month. "
"I had the same experience. Didn't answer and heard nothing further. "
I find this rather disturbing. The more evidence we gather, them more LinkedIn are likely to put protections in place to ensure no other women are effected.
I have also been approached for dates and stalked on Linked In.
ReplyDeleteSo what.
Every day, in all walks of life, women experience a level of harassment that exceeds any minority. Until the day where we refuse to accept second helpings, we will continue to be treated with disrespect. And for that we are responsible. Us, and us alone.
So.
Do the big girl thing. Forget the internet nit wits; they are cowards. Long term that situation is getting so bad that half the human race is humiliated, so it is self-limiting.
Instead, meet your offender eye to eye, equal to equal. For you. For your mother. For your daughter. For all of us.
This is one of the reasons I only connect with people who validate their relevance to me in some way or another. Build a massive network of people who don't care about you, what you do or how you can help them and you'll surely connect to a few fools.
ReplyDeleteThanks Teddy, I agree although we should not excuse this kind of behaviour I'm sure you will agree!
ReplyDelete