POO NEWS: LINKEDIN IS FACEBOOK WEARING A SUIT. SO WHERE THE HELL ARE THE JOBS?
LinkedIn has become Facebook in a business suit, overflowing with corporate bullshit, fake inspiration, ghost jobs, and influencers collecting likes while real people struggle to find work.
DR
LinkedIn calls itself the world's largest professional network. But when professional networking starts looking more like Facebook, it's fair to ask whether the platform is still serving the people looking for work or just serving another endless social media feed.
There was a time when LinkedIn had a fairly straightforward purpose. Professionals connected with other professionals, businesses searched for qualified employees, recruiters identified talent, and people built networks that could lead to real employment opportunities. It wasn't supposed to be another Facebook. It was supposed to be the professional alternative.
Fast-forward to today, and I'm beginning to wonder whether LinkedIn accidentally swallowed Facebook, put on a cheap business suit, and decided nobody would notice.
Open the feed and you'll find political arguments, recycled motivational speeches, inspirational stories that sound suspiciously like they were written by the same artificial intelligence, pictures of executives pretending to be ordinary people, personal announcements, humblebrags, and people congratulating one another for surviving another Monday.
Somebody just learned five leadership lessons from their dog. Somebody else discovered the secret to corporate success while drinking coffee. Another executive is explaining how getting rejected for a job taught them to become a billionaire, even though their profile suggests they're still selling marketing consultations from their spare bedroom.
Congratulations. We've created Facebook with résumés.
Meanwhile, ordinary people are trying to find jobs.
To be fair, LinkedIn does have job listings, recruiter tools, and an actual role in hiring. The company reports thousands of job applications submitted through its platform every minute. But applications are not hires, profile views aren't paychecks, and engagement isn't employment.
Even LinkedIn's own research paints a discouraging picture. Its 2026 findings report that U.S. applicants per open role have doubled since spring 2022, while 65% of surveyed job seekers say finding employment has become more difficult.
That's not a number LinkedIn should be celebrating with another inspirational post about resilience. It's evidence that the employment experience deserves serious attention.
A job board wrapped inside a social media circus
Here's something that bothers me about how modern job-search platforms work.
You find a promising position, read the description, prepare your résumé, and click Apply. Sometimes LinkedIn lets you apply directly. Other times, it sends you to the company's website or another application system, where you get to upload your résumé and then manually type everything already written on that résumé.
What an amazing technological achievement. We've managed to automate the process of making people do the same work twice.
Of course, employers ultimately make their own hiring decisions, and LinkedIn cannot manufacture job openings that don't exist. But this raises the question of where the real value lies.
Is LinkedIn helping people secure meaningful employment, or is it increasingly a massive advertising and networking platform built around the hope that somewhere in the noise, somebody might notice a résumé?
There are real success stories. Recruiters do find candidates, people build useful relationships, and employers fill positions. I'm not dismissing that.
But the platform also benefits from keeping people engaged whether or not that engagement produces a job. A professional network that becomes obsessed with posting, commenting, impressions, followers, and viral content begins to reward the same behaviors as every other social media company.
That's where the Facebook comparison becomes difficult to ignore.
On Facebook, people compete for attention with vacation pictures and political opinions. On LinkedIn, they compete for attention with professional headshots, recycled leadership advice, and stories beginning with how one small act of kindness changed their approach to business strategy.
Different packaging. Same attention economy.
The job market has enough problems without the social media bullshit
Another serious problem is the growing concern surrounding ghost jobs, meaning advertised positions that are not actively being filled or may never have been intended to result in a hire.
Hiring platform Greenhouse has published research discussing ghost jobs, overwhelmed recruiters, and declining trust in the hiring process. This isn't exclusively a LinkedIn problem, but any platform presenting itself as a major gateway to employment has a responsibility to take the quality and transparency of job listings seriously.
Someone unemployed for six months does not need another inspirational story from a CEO about how rejection builds character. They need a genuine position, a functioning application process, and some indication that an actual human being is evaluating candidates.
They don't need to spend another afternoon applying to jobs that may not be actively hiring, followed by a cheerful notification suggesting they upgrade their professional presence.
You know what would improve someone's professional presence? A paycheck.
And this is where LinkedIn's social-media identity becomes relevant to its moderation practices.
Facebook-style engagement with corporate-style censorship
If LinkedIn increasingly operates like a social network, it should be prepared for the same disagreements, political arguments, personal opinions, and occasional stupidity that appear on other social platforms.
Instead, LinkedIn has positioned itself as the guardian of professional conduct while maintaining a feed filled with behavior that sometimes looks remarkably similar to the platforms it supposedly distinguishes itself from.
Words such as "snowflake" are common in political discussions. Meanwhile, publicly indexed LinkedIn comments have included direct personal insults using words such as "retard" and "retarded." A public account from professional Dana Brownlee describes reporting a message containing the latter language and allegedly receiving a determination that it did not violate LinkedIn's policies.
This raises reasonable questions about consistency. Not every use of the same word has the same context, and not every publicly accessible comment has necessarily been reported or reviewed. But once moderation decisions are made, the platform should be able to explain the standards being applied.
A professional network that wants to enforce higher standards should demonstrate higher standards in its own enforcement process.
That includes meaningful appeal mechanisms. A member who receives a notice that an appeal has been decided should be able to access the decision, understand the rule applied, and determine whether there is any further review available.
An appeal notification that leads to a dead page doesn't accomplish that, even if the page happens to work when somebody at the company checks it later.
The larger issue isn't whether LinkedIn should moderate its community. The issue is whether the system is transparent, consistent, and genuinely aligned with the professional purpose the platform claims to serve.
What exactly makes LinkedIn professional anymore?
A professional network should be judged on more than how much engagement its feed generates. It should be judged on whether it helps people develop careers, form productive connections, find qualified employees, and access genuine opportunities.
Posting inspirational garbage five times a week shouldn't be a substitute for actual professional value.
A CEO receiving 30,000 likes for a story about giving an employee a sandwich isn't evidence that the platform is helping someone find work. It's evidence that people liked a story about a sandwich.
When job seekers are competing against enormous applicant pools, recruiters are drowning in submissions, and people are questioning the authenticity of job listings, perhaps the priority should be making employment connections work better rather than encouraging another round of social media theater.
I don't think LinkedIn is useless. I think the platform's social-media identity has become so dominant that its original professional purpose deserves a much harder examination.
If LinkedIn wants to be Facebook, fine. There's obviously a market for another place where strangers argue about politics and congratulate themselves for understanding leadership.
But if LinkedIn wants to be taken seriously as an essential part of the modern job market, then the employment experience needs to be more than a job-search tab attached to an endless feed of self-promotion.
And if the company wants to enforce professional standards, its moderation and appeal systems need to be professional too.
Poo News conclusion: LinkedIn doesn't necessarily need more influencers, inspirational corporate speeches, or algorithms deciding whose humblebrag deserves another million impressions. It needs to demonstrate that its enormous professional network produces meaningful value for the people depending on it.
Because when the networking becomes Facebook, the recruiting becomes a maze, and the moderation becomes a mystery, there's only one question left.
Is LinkedIn still a professional employment platform, or just Facebook with a résumé attached and a monthly subscription?
This is Poo News. We cut through the crap, even when the crap shows up wearing a tie.
There was a time when LinkedIn had a fairly straightforward purpose. Professionals connected with other professionals, businesses searched for qualified employees, recruiters identified talent, and people built networks that could lead to real employment opportunities. It wasn't supposed to be another Facebook. It was supposed to be the professional alternative.
Fast-forward to today, and I'm beginning to wonder whether LinkedIn accidentally swallowed Facebook, put on a cheap business suit, and decided nobody would notice.
Open the feed and you'll find political arguments, recycled motivational speeches, inspirational stories that sound suspiciously like they were written by the same artificial intelligence, pictures of executives pretending to be ordinary people, personal announcements, humblebrags, and people congratulating one another for surviving another Monday.
Somebody just learned five leadership lessons from their dog. Somebody else discovered the secret to corporate success while drinking coffee. Another executive is explaining how getting rejected for a job taught them to become a billionaire, even though their profile suggests they're still selling marketing consultations from their spare bedroom.
Congratulations. We've created Facebook with résumés.
Meanwhile, ordinary people are trying to find jobs.
To be fair, LinkedIn does have job listings, recruiter tools, and an actual role in hiring. The company reports thousands of job applications submitted through its platform every minute. But applications are not hires, profile views aren't paychecks, and engagement isn't employment.
Even LinkedIn's own research paints a discouraging picture. Its 2026 findings report that U.S. applicants per open role have doubled since spring 2022, while 65% of surveyed job seekers say finding employment has become more difficult.
That's not a number LinkedIn should be celebrating with another inspirational post about resilience. It's evidence that the employment experience deserves serious attention.
A job board wrapped inside a social media circus
Here's something that bothers me about how modern job-search platforms work.
You find a promising position, read the description, prepare your résumé, and click Apply. Sometimes LinkedIn lets you apply directly. Other times, it sends you to the company's website or another application system, where you get to upload your résumé and then manually type everything already written on that résumé.
What an amazing technological achievement. We've managed to automate the process of making people do the same work twice.
Of course, employers ultimately make their own hiring decisions, and LinkedIn cannot manufacture job openings that don't exist. But this raises the question of where the real value lies.
Is LinkedIn helping people secure meaningful employment, or is it increasingly a massive advertising and networking platform built around the hope that somewhere in the noise, somebody might notice a résumé?
There are real success stories. Recruiters do find candidates, people build useful relationships, and employers fill positions. I'm not dismissing that.
But the platform also benefits from keeping people engaged whether or not that engagement produces a job. A professional network that becomes obsessed with posting, commenting, impressions, followers, and viral content begins to reward the same behaviors as every other social media company.
That's where the Facebook comparison becomes difficult to ignore.
On Facebook, people compete for attention with vacation pictures and political opinions. On LinkedIn, they compete for attention with professional headshots, recycled leadership advice, and stories beginning with how one small act of kindness changed their approach to business strategy.
Different packaging. Same attention economy.
The job market has enough problems without the social media bullshit
Another serious problem is the growing concern surrounding ghost jobs, meaning advertised positions that are not actively being filled or may never have been intended to result in a hire.
Hiring platform Greenhouse has published research discussing ghost jobs, overwhelmed recruiters, and declining trust in the hiring process. This isn't exclusively a LinkedIn problem, but any platform presenting itself as a major gateway to employment has a responsibility to take the quality and transparency of job listings seriously.
Someone unemployed for six months does not need another inspirational story from a CEO about how rejection builds character. They need a genuine position, a functioning application process, and some indication that an actual human being is evaluating candidates.
They don't need to spend another afternoon applying to jobs that may not be actively hiring, followed by a cheerful notification suggesting they upgrade their professional presence.
You know what would improve someone's professional presence? A paycheck.
And this is where LinkedIn's social-media identity becomes relevant to its moderation practices.
Facebook-style engagement with corporate-style censorship
If LinkedIn increasingly operates like a social network, it should be prepared for the same disagreements, political arguments, personal opinions, and occasional stupidity that appear on other social platforms.
Instead, LinkedIn has positioned itself as the guardian of professional conduct while maintaining a feed filled with behavior that sometimes looks remarkably similar to the platforms it supposedly distinguishes itself from.
Words such as "snowflake" are common in political discussions. Meanwhile, publicly indexed LinkedIn comments have included direct personal insults using words such as "retard" and "retarded." A public account from professional Dana Brownlee describes reporting a message containing the latter language and allegedly receiving a determination that it did not violate LinkedIn's policies.
This raises reasonable questions about consistency. Not every use of the same word has the same context, and not every publicly accessible comment has necessarily been reported or reviewed. But once moderation decisions are made, the platform should be able to explain the standards being applied.
A professional network that wants to enforce higher standards should demonstrate higher standards in its own enforcement process.
That includes meaningful appeal mechanisms. A member who receives a notice that an appeal has been decided should be able to access the decision, understand the rule applied, and determine whether there is any further review available.
An appeal notification that leads to a dead page doesn't accomplish that, even if the page happens to work when somebody at the company checks it later.
The larger issue isn't whether LinkedIn should moderate its community. The issue is whether the system is transparent, consistent, and genuinely aligned with the professional purpose the platform claims to serve.
What exactly makes LinkedIn professional anymore?
A professional network should be judged on more than how much engagement its feed generates. It should be judged on whether it helps people develop careers, form productive connections, find qualified employees, and access genuine opportunities.
Posting inspirational garbage five times a week shouldn't be a substitute for actual professional value.
A CEO receiving 30,000 likes for a story about giving an employee a sandwich isn't evidence that the platform is helping someone find work. It's evidence that people liked a story about a sandwich.
When job seekers are competing against enormous applicant pools, recruiters are drowning in submissions, and people are questioning the authenticity of job listings, perhaps the priority should be making employment connections work better rather than encouraging another round of social media theater.
I don't think LinkedIn is useless. I think the platform's social-media identity has become so dominant that its original professional purpose deserves a much harder examination.
If LinkedIn wants to be Facebook, fine. There's obviously a market for another place where strangers argue about politics and congratulate themselves for understanding leadership.
But if LinkedIn wants to be taken seriously as an essential part of the modern job market, then the employment experience needs to be more than a job-search tab attached to an endless feed of self-promotion.
And if the company wants to enforce professional standards, its moderation and appeal systems need to be professional too.
Poo News conclusion: LinkedIn doesn't necessarily need more influencers, inspirational corporate speeches, or algorithms deciding whose humblebrag deserves another million impressions. It needs to demonstrate that its enormous professional network produces meaningful value for the people depending on it.
Because when the networking becomes Facebook, the recruiting becomes a maze, and the moderation becomes a mystery, there's only one question left.
Is LinkedIn still a professional employment platform, or just Facebook with a résumé attached and a monthly subscription?
This is Poo News. We cut through the crap, even when the crap shows up wearing a tie.
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