As LinkedIn becomes more of a hub for a broader range of engagement, the platform is now updating its policies to allow for more types of discussion in the app.
LinkedIn has announced an update to its community policies in order to allow more types of newsworthy content, even if that content might technically break the platform’s rules.
As explained by LinkedIn:
“Our Professional Community Policies are clear: LinkedIn is a place for safe, trusted, and professional content. There are rare times, however, when content that violates our policies is educational or newsworthy enough that keeping it on the platform is in the public interest.”
LinkedIn says that it’s now updating its policies to provide more clarity about cases in which it would allow such material on the platform due to its educational or newsworthy value.
“This could be content ranging from medical procedures performed by a surgeon or real-world images of war shared for awareness or newsworthy purposes.”
LinkedIn’s current guidelines include specific notes about the type of material that’s against the rules in this respect:
“We don't allow content that is excessively gruesome or shocking. This includes content that is sadistic or gratuitously graphic, such as the depiction of bodily injury, severe physical or sexual violence.”
In fact, LinkedIn has a long list of content that it doesn’t allow, but this new policy will ease these rules in certain contexts, where LinkedIn’s team has determined that there’s newsworthy value in such.
“We conduct a careful review of content that may call for newsworthy treatment, balancing the potential harm of leaving it on the platform against the value to members and the public by allowing it. Factors we consider include educational value, relationship to major events of the day, the speaker or content author, and whether it concerns matters of public importance. When newsworthy content might be graphic or disturbing, we will include a warning screen.”
So you may soon see LinkedIn posts hidden behind a “See More” barrier, like you do in other social apps.
To be clear, LinkedIn has actually had "sensitive content" warning screens for the last couple of years, so this, in itself, is not new. But it will now seemingly be allowing more content to be posted in the app along these lines.
As noted, in the wake of the changes to Twitter (now X), LinkedIn has become more of a hub for a broader range of discussion, which is often not restricted to just professional updates.
And that’s especially true with LinkedIn’s video push. LinkedIn recently reported that it’s now seen three straight quarters of double-digit growth in video uploads, and with more video content being uploaded, sparking more discussion, it makes sense that LinkedIn is also going to see more topical, newsworthy content, of all types, which is why it’s not revising its rules to allow for such.
So it’s probably not a major change, but you may notice warning screens in the app sometime soon.
