Sunnyvale, CA – LinkedIn has failed to remove some antisemitic posts from its platform despite receiving complaints from users.
Members of the professional network who flagged examples of racist posts were informed that certain messages do not breach the platform’s rules.
In one case, a member wrote on the site: “Basically it’s all about money… the Jews have cemented themselves into USA politics and business.”
When a user reported the post, they received a reply from LinkedIn saying it had reviewed the comment and “found it does not go against” its community policies.
Separately, a user who complained about a post that said “Jews/Zionists are pigs say the Qur’an [sic]” accompanied by an image of the said animal, was told this did not violate the site’s policies.
LinkedIn did remove two other images of “Jews as pigs”, campaign group UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) said.
Another post referred to “Zionazi criminals on $tolen Palestinian land [sic]”. LinkedIn did not remove the post, but said the remark did not breach its rules and suggested the complainant unfollow or mute the user in question.
The tech company, which has more than 900 million members, says it does not allow prejudicial or hateful comments against any racial or religious groups.
UKLFI has written to LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft, to ask the company to “improve its policy regarding anti-Israel and antisemitic content, and its mechanisms for removing such content”.
Caroline Turner, UKLFI director, said: “LinkedIn is a professional organisation for networking aimed at professionals.
“It therefore has more credibility than other social media outlets. While LinkedIn claims not to tolerate all forms of hate speech, it appears not to apply that standard to antisemitism.”
A spokesperson for LinkedIn said: “While we cannot comment on another member’s account for privacy reasons, antisemitism and other forms of hate speech do not belong on LinkedIn or in our communities.
“We’re committed to setting a high standard for safe conversations on our platform, and we’ll take action on any content or behaviour that goes against our professional community policies.
“This is deeply important and we’ll continue to invest in the features and tools that keep our platform safe.”
In the first six months of the year, 210 incidents of online antisemitism across various platforms were reported to the Community Security Trust (CST), according to the group, though the true number of incidents experienced is likely to be much higher.
