WTF? Friday: LinkedIn Bans Prostitutes, Allows Goofy Endorsements

By May 17, 2013Social Media

It’s outrageous, right? That all this time, LinkedIn has had users whose professions include prostitution, and that endorsements like “rape,” “shoplifting,” and “manslaughter” have been WTF?allowed?

HOW DID WE NOT KNOW THIS? And really, who wants a prostitute with a well-developed professional net . . . oh, never mind.

LinkedIn is busy revising its user agreements while the rest of us grow weary of the request for endorsements. My friend, optometrist Mike Murphy, sent a message to his LinkedIn contacts this week:

I am sending a blanket email to all of my connections on Linked-In regarding endorsements.

Please be advised that I do not value empty endorsements. If you have never worked with me, been a patient of mine, or in some cases never MET me please do not endorse me.
Nor should you ask for or expect that I will endorse you for your skills if I have not experienced them first hand. I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but seriously if you do not know me how do you know that I even know which end of an ophthalmoscope to look through?

That said, I have received a few endorsements from people who I have a professional relationship with and those I welcome warmly and value highly.

Thank you for your consideration.

Mike Murphy

Endorsements have quickly lost their value. What still holds up, however, are the thoughtful recommendations that connections have written to formally recognize one another.

If you want to provide value to someone in your network, don’t endorse a skill, write them a recommendation.

One Comment

  • ShawnMcDonald says:

    Okay. I may be communicating rectally here, but…It was my understanding that the “Billy Bob Banker just endorsed your taxidermy skills” emails I get are actually faux prompts that LinkedIn manufactures to encourage users to access their account, perhaps in reciprocation.The same way that my Facebook friends are really NOT inviting me to play Candy Crush, but they blindly granted some game company rights to raid their contact list for spam purposes. I thought the LinkedIn endorsements roux was bogus bogusness at it’s most socially engineered bogusity.