Academics must resist LinkedIn’s enshittification

Recently, I quietly updated my LinkedIn profile with a major administrative role I had taken six months prior. I unchecked the “notify network” box, hit save, and carried on with my weekend.

Wrong move. Monday morning, my phone exploded. LinkedIn had published a job update post anyway (the one I explicitly told it not to publish). So there I was, awkwardly thanking colleagues in the comments while explaining that this wasn’t news, just housekeeping the platform had decided to advertise – in an apparent pivot towards an operating logic that prioritises clicks over substance.

LinkedIn is increasingly losing the qualities that once made it a credible professional network, for academics as much as anyone else. Data backs this up: views, engagement and follower growth have all markedly declined recently as what was originally designed for meaningful exchange and career advancement has drifted into a steady decay driven by algorithmic manipulation and a flood of low-value content. The platform now feels transactional and hollow, overrun by humblebrags, hyper-personal confessions, self-congratulatory reflections and engagement bait.

Academics are no exception. The feed cycles through well-known performances: cringey “My Google Scholar has reached…” or “my most successful post was…” announcements; unprompted reanimations of decade-old papers (“This 2014 paper of mine is really a gem you should be citing”); jarring tonal whiplashes that juxtapose exotic vacation photos with glossy publication announcements. The result is a homogenised feed of white noise where authentic expertise struggles to surface, while recycled ideas and performative authenticity thrive.

Worse, some high-follower accounts scan posts from less popular ones, repackage their ideas without credit and leverage superior visibility to capture clout that rightfully belongs to the original contributor. For academics, this should have been a red line. What do these researchers do in other contexts if they behave this unethically in public? The platform rewards the most strategically curated set of alternative facts. “Scientific Kardashians” – figures whose follower counts exist in surreal disproportion to their academic heritage – are omnipresent, demonstrating how strategic self-presentation can eclipse substantive contributions. After all, everyone is an expert.

Getting back to our starting point: why exactly did my intentionally silent job update get prime placement in everyone’s feed? Because LinkedIn’s algorithm wanted it there, exploiting basic human psychology. We are far more likely to click “Thumbs up” on a colleague’s job change than to engage with their latest publication or successful grant bid. Job updates feel safe: non-competitive, low-stakes, easy to celebrate. But a strong publication or major grant? That’s someone advancing, potentially outpacing us. So we scroll past. We dismiss or ignore them.

Ironically, though, those are the only truly useful morsels on the platform: the substance a professional network should amplify. Instead, they get buried by algorithmic junk.

Can we be better LinkedIn citizens? Can we fight back against enshittification? As academics, we both can and must. Here are some common-sense guidelines. You probably know most of them already. Do them anyway.

• Never plagiarise others’ original content. In the age of AI and supercharged information flows, absurdly, old-fashioned idea-stealing is thriving big. Credit, opportunity and morale are being stolen in plain sight from the people who did the actual thinking.
• Keep the humble, drop the brag. Paper accepted? Post it, explain it, tag the relevant people. But if you are not the lead author, leave the spotlight for your co-author. Eager to show me your latest vacation in Seychelles? Fine, I am jealous. But please don’t bundle it with a professional achievement, as it automatically nullifies it.
• Put in the work. Two sentences and an outdated link do not constitute a good enough post. I know that getting five likes always from the same five people must be disappointing, but ultimately your posts represent you. Give your achievement the send-off it deserves regardless of engagement.
• Drop the synthetic slop. Many posts nowadays look identical: same tone, same structure, same soulless cadence of AI-generated numbing elevator music. When everything reads the same, nothing stands out. Use AI to edit or overcome writer’s block, not to replace your thinking, originality or passion.
• Be authentic. We know that LinkedIn rewards only safe, curated stories of vulnerability leading to success. True authenticity means confessing to failures (more common than successes for most scientists, after all) and shining a light on the darker aspects of academia, such as rejection, bias, gatekeeping and unethical behaviour of colleagues. These rarely get discussed openly, despite their heavy toll. Let’s change this. Not performatively (“I failed and it made me stronger”, which is just a humblebrag with a sad face), but honestly, specifically, usefully. That is the kind of content a professional network actually needs.

None of this is revolutionary. Most of us already know all this deep down, but we abandon it the moment the platform nudges us towards the theatrical, the easy and the clickable. But if enough of us push back (post with substance, credit ideas properly, share the lows alongside the glitzy wins) we can move the needle. Not because LinkedIn will reward us for it, but because most people in our feeds are just as tired of the noise as we are.

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Sorin M.S. Krammer is professor of strategy and international business at the University of Southampton.