"Dozens of women joined a collective LinkedIn experiment this week after a series of viral posts suggested that, for some, changing their gender to male boosted their visibility on the network. Others rewrote their profiles to be, as they put it, bro-coded inserting action-oriented online business buzzwords such as drive, transform and accelerate. Anecdotally, their visibility also increased. The uptick in engagement has led some to speculate that an in-built sexism in LinkedIn's algorithm means that men who speak in online business jargon are more visible on its platform."
"Like most large social media platforms, LinkedIn uses an algorithm to determine which posts it shows to which users boosting some, and downgrading others. In a blog post on Thursday, LinkedIn acknowledged the trend, but said it did not consider demographic information in deciding who gets attention. Instead, it said, hundreds of signals factor into how a given post performs. Changing gender on your profile does not affect how your content appears in search or feed, a spokesperson said."
"It has certainly been exciting, said Simone Bonnett, an Oxford-based social media consultant who changed her pronouns to he/him and her name to Simon E on LinkedIn earlier this week. The kind of stats that I'm seeing at the moment are a 1,600% increase in profile views, which is wild if you think about what social media views look like at the moment, and a 1,300% increase in impressions. Also wild reach stats."
Dozens of women changed LinkedIn profiles—switching gender to male or adopting bro-coded business language—and reported dramatic increases in views, impressions and reach. Some individuals recorded profile views up 1,600% and impressions up 1,300%. Observers and participants speculate that algorithmic bias may favor male-presenting users or masculine jargon, increasing visibility. LinkedIn stated that demographic information is not used and that hundreds of signals determine post performance, and that changing profile gender does not affect search or feed placement. The anecdotal uptick prompted further profile experimentation among women on the platform.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]