[HN Gopher] Tell HN: LinkedIn banned me because of my avatar, in...
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Tell HN: LinkedIn banned me because of my avatar, in the middle of
my fundraise
I've been on LinkedIn for a while with zero issues with my normal
cartoon avatar (which I use absolutely everywhere). Then yesterday,
in the middle of my new startup's fundraise, they hit me with an ID
verification and banned my account + deleted my startup's page. My
profile is missing. I have unanswered messages with people whose
emails I don't have. Potential investors etc. Friends reaching out
asking me why my profile is missing. They didn't tell me why.
Still this morning I didn't know. Now they just responded with an
email telling me my "appeal has been denied", and telling me that
they removed my avatar for not complying with the TOS. Zero
warning, just straight to ban. This is the avatar:
https://leclan.ch (it's used with the author's permission)
Author : scrollaway
Score : 89 points
Date : 2023-07-11 15:52 UTC (1 days ago)
| nikanj wrote:
| Congratulations, you have successfully reached The One True
| Customer Service: HN front page.
|
| Expect your issue to be resolved promptly. The HN front page
| proudly serves customers from all megacorporations, including but
| not limited to the classic FAANG, Microsoft and many others.
|
| Is your account locked and customer service unwilling to review
| your case? Did all your data disappear and you can only reach a
| chat bot from 1997? Stop wasting time with official channels,
| post on HN front page today!
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| Tbh I don't mind learning about the latest frenzies in big
| tech.
|
| Serves as a good warning at times, don't you think?
|
| Esp. if potential data loss is involved.
| frollo wrote:
| I have lots of complaints about this website, but seeing how
| quickly things get solved when you're getting a bad rep in the
| whole damned industry is always fun.
| Havoc wrote:
| Linkedin doesn't do avatars. They do pictures of you. You are not
| a cartoon character.
|
| > Some examples of photos that shouldn't be used are:
|
| > Avatars, emojis, or cartoons
|
| The straight ban seems excessively harsh, but fundamentally the
| pic does seem to be against their policies.
|
| https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1377087/profi...
| scrollaway wrote:
| Yup, but I didn't know that (and when I signed up, it pulled my
| profile picture from Google, so I didn't think anything of it),
| and I wasn't given a chance to fix it.
|
| They even sent an email _after the ban_ giving me a "friendly
| heads up" that my profile pictures has been taken down, and
| advising me to upload a new one. If I had gotten that email a
| day before I could have done something about it...
|
| The help article says it can be removed, but it doesn't say
| anything about the account getting altogether blocked with no
| warning...
| b_f wrote:
| I wonder how long they've had this policy in place. I've been
| using the same, illustrated self-portrait on LinkedIn since
| 2008.
| jchw wrote:
| I had _no idea_ about this policy. Then again, I hate linkedin
| with a passion. However, I 'm pretty sure I saw _tons_ of
| violations of this policy all over the place, so I bet this is
| going to result in a lot of bans if they happen to be doing a
| crackdown.
|
| The funny thing is, on a platform like linkedin, my instinct
| would be to use an actual photograph. But in protest of a
| policy like this, I'd rather just have nothing instead.
| mlyle wrote:
| The whole photographs thing is a real mixed bag anyways.
| Seeing a picture to jog your memory is sometimes great.
|
| But it's also a great way to enable racial and age
| discrimination: see the face and decide you interpret all the
| rest of the context in the profile differently (even
| inadvertently).
|
| Sure, you'll know the race / age / etc eventually, but at
| least if the person is in the door they have a chance instead
| of getting chucked in the bin during screening.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| This is very true. Further its not only true of people you
| would consider bigots. We can all fall victim to
| unconscious biases. Unfortunately if only people of a
| certain stripe omit them there is no reason believe it
| would be effective. People respond well to pictures.
|
| This can be enabled in truth by names as well. Most notably
| obviously for race/national origin. A notable study found
| that the exact resume received fewer call backs when the
| name was a typical white name vs a name indicative of
| ethnicity. To a lesser extent you can also consider age in
| relation to name as some names have drastically increased
| or decreased in popularity over time.
|
| This makes me think that a productive solution would have
| to take place in HR as opposed to grass roots. Ideally you
| really want people to review candidates initially without
| benefit of name or face and only after selecting a subset
| view potentially biasing information.
|
| Maybe there should be a HR mode for LinkedIn which by
| default hides these details and shows other items while
| allowing you to make a saved list of prospective hires to
| pass down the food chain.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| "seems excessively harsh" seems like a knowing understatement.
| It is not "excessive", it is _incorrect_. The link you posted
| provides clear language:
|
| "Your profile photo may be removed by LinkedIn if it doesn't
| comply"
|
| According to this, the reason they were banned is not due to
| their avatar (but we can't know because LinkedIn has declined
| to elaborate, according to the OP).
| Havoc wrote:
| >According to this, the reason they were banned is not due to
| their avatar
|
| That doesn't really follow. Especially since they
| specifically said the avator is the issue:
|
| >they removed my avatar for not complying with the TOS.
|
| Though unclear how OP is talking about both avatar removal
| AND account ban? Feels like perhaps half the story.
|
| How they got from avatar issue to a whole account ban I can't
| tell you but I'd imagine there is something in the ToS that
| makes it viable (impersonation etc).
|
| Not saying it's fair ofc...but plausible
| scrollaway wrote:
| > _Though unclear how OP is talking about both avatar
| removal AND account ban? Feels like perhaps half the
| story._
|
| Timeline:
|
| Day 1: Account is restricted/blocked, on login I'm
| presented with ID verification and a "we'll let you know".
|
| Day 2: I receive an email as a follow up to the ID
| verification. "Your appeal has been denied and your account
| will remain restricted". No reason given beyond having
| "misrepresented my identity".
|
| Day 2.5: Slightly later, I receive an email saying my
| avatar has been removed because it didn't comply with the
| TOS and I should upload a real photo.
| dangus wrote:
| I bet $10 that OP re-uploaded the avatar after having it
| removed the first time.
| scrollaway wrote:
| I didn't have it removed until _after_ the account got
| restricted. I 'll happily forward you the emails if you
| send the $10 to anything listed here:
| https://help.gov.ua/en/
| scrollaway wrote:
| The only context I didn't mention is I set up an ad campaign
| the week prior to boost a post for the startup in question. I
| _suspect_ that this is what triggered the ID verification a
| few days later, which resulted in an "appeal denied" email.
|
| I can only guess. But I did receive a confirmation email
| about my avatar being taken down due to their policy; and the
| appeal message mentions "misrepresenting my identity".
| nashashmi wrote:
| I am guessing that the more attention you got, the more scrutiny
| your profile received. And thus someone reported you for
| violating the TOS. That someone may be a competitor??
| sgt wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Please don't cross into personal attack.
| WhatDFHere wrote:
| wow - when they first banned you did you receive an email in your
| inbox with any details? I'm surprised as MSFT would typically
| provide some information like a third-party claiming IP
| infringement or violation of content policies
| scrollaway wrote:
| Nothing. I just logged on and got hit with a captcha + ID
| verification. They just said they do it when there is a
| potential account compromise.
| rngname22 wrote:
| Potentially someone or some bot was spamming login attempts
| to your account or something? Or actually got in? And their
| automated tools detected and triggered your account to enter
| a state where it required ID verif. before login is possible.
|
| Sounds like their appeals process is broken/bugged or they
| just don't staff it (and auto-close / auto-reject appeals).
| londons_explore wrote:
| Or maybe he then failed the ID verification step because
| they match your uploaded government photoid to your profile
| picture. Can't match to a cartoon.
| rngname22 wrote:
| Yep I was gonna say the same. Automated ID verif by
| comparing facial geometry to the profile pic, if it fails
| you're toast.
|
| Thing is they should either have an appeals process that
| works or they should require the ID verif at sign-up (so
| people discover they can't get by with a fake photo at
| the start before they invest in the platform and can
| remake their account). It does sound like fake photo
| might be against TOS but no one reads TOS?
|
| Sounds like the current system sucks ass. Trust and
| Safety often underfunded / underthought though nothing
| surprising.
| frollo wrote:
| Yeah, if OP was getting popular (and getting money out of
| it), the account would have become a juicy target.
|
| And LinkedIn had probably put it in some "extra checks"
| list for the same reason, thus triggering the ID check.
| 0xfedbee wrote:
| I don't know why people even use the cesspool that's LinkedIn. I
| deleted my account in 2012 because of their spam emails and
| haven't looked back since.
| scrollaway wrote:
| Honestly so did I. I recreated it last year after managing
| /not/ to use it for a long time. But my sector is particularly
| LinkedIn-heavy and when you're fundraising it's nigh impossible
| not to use it.
|
| Plus it's for a legaltech, so a LinkedIn page for it is
| important from the marketing side of things.
| orangetexter wrote:
| Sign up for one of their paid plans and resubmit your support
| requests. They'll help a paying customer much quicker than non-
| paying customer.
| qingcharles wrote:
| LOL. Doesn't always help. My business account on Twitter is
| stuck in read-only. I can't follow or like anyone or anything.
| BUT, it will let me subscribe to paying feeds. Still no way to
| get support though...
| scrollaway wrote:
| I can't log in.
| rngname22 wrote:
| Maybe create a new account (even if it requires VPN / new
| device ID, new email, new IP), then get paid plan on that,
| then contact support?
| scrollaway wrote:
| Honestly, I have zero doubt it would make things worse and
| get me blocked again for ban evasion / duplicate accounts.
| I also used to be on Premium a while back, and I don't
| remember any customer support beyond automated billing CS
| trees.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| I'm not sure how it could make it worse. What are they
| going to do, call your parents? Super ban you?
| solardev wrote:
| There's not going to be someone on the other side
| thinking "oh okay well this guy must be legit, he made a
| new paid account just to talk to us and let us know what
| happened. We'll help him now that we know what happened!"
|
| It's gonna be a bunch of separate underpaid undertrained
| drones seeing a duplicate account and banning that one
| too and making up random TOS violations, probably a
| different one every time. Then even if you manage to
| reach someone on the first account they'll be like sorry
| you were banned for spamming, I don't know anything about
| the profile picture.
|
| These sites don't care about you. At all.
| version_five wrote:
| What part of the TOS did it violate?
| mvdtnz wrote:
| In the LinkedIn Professional Community Policies[0], which is
| linked from the User Agreement[1], which is linked from the
| Terms of Service[2], they state,
|
| > Do not use an image of someone else, or any other image that
| is not your likeness, for your profile photo.
|
| It seems extremely unfair to me to go straight to a ban based
| on the profile picture alone. But it is clearly part of their
| terms of service (not that I would expect anyone to know this).
|
| [0] https://www.linkedin.com/legal/professional-community-
| polici...
|
| [1] https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement#obligations
|
| [2] https://www.linkedin.com/legal/l/service-terms
| wslh wrote:
| It is important to highlight that a TOS is not over the law, so
| the TOS could be partially not enforced in court.
| scrollaway wrote:
| In the follow up email (sent after the ban, and with a helpful
| "Please upload a new one", which I cannot do because it's
| restricted), they cite that "profile photos can get flagged
| for: (...) Not being an image of you or an actual photograph".
| zgluck wrote:
| > they cite that "profile photos can get flagged for: (...)
| Not being an image of you or an actual photograph".
|
| That actually seems fair to me, considering what LinkedIn is.
| gknoy wrote:
| That seems very strange that they would _ban the account_
| rather than deleting the profile image and rendering a
| placeholder instead.
| zgluck wrote:
| It's a CV network. Not a social network. I do understand
| why they ban clowns who upload cartoons for their
| portrait photos.
| [deleted]
| mx_02 wrote:
| Do no expect common sense from IT companies. Google is
| even worse.
|
| It's pretty normal to ban people instead of trying ro fox
| the issue. It's probably cheaper to them.
|
| We have no rights and no protection from corporations
| other than "Do business somewhere else"
| paxys wrote:
| Sounds like some moderator/support agent was on a power trip.
| Even if such a policy exists, deleting an entire profile without
| letting the problem even be addressed first is wayyyy too strict
| an enforcement.
| j-bos wrote:
| In the days of deep fakes I find it weird that real photos are a
| requirement on a social media site. I'd prefer to limit photos
| floating around.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| I've gotten so many "recruiters" message me whose PFPs are
| obviously AI generated
| geoah wrote:
| Is your avatar Marten for QC? :D
| scrollaway wrote:
| Yes, good eye :) I used it for years, and eventually just asked
| the author to get his official permission. I treasure it.
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(page generated 2023-07-12 23:01 UTC)