Social Media Bullying — On LinkedIn?
This is a story best told through pictures, captured exactly as it unfolded, without any edits or exclusions. LinkedIn is a public social network; anyone can view the posts that are submitted here, unless they occur in a private group or message. I’ve never met many of my followers or connections, and that’s OK; I appreciate connection and engaging discussions.
This entire exchange occurred out in the open, not in a group or message.
This is what it is to be a woman expressing an opinion online that strikes a nerve.
Or, in this case, sharing an opinion someone else expressed — via Dilbert.
*Edit 6/28: link to the original LinkedIn thread, where raving continues and new bullies (some more subtle than others) emerge as others blocked.*
This is bullying. This happened to me. This happened today. Astonishingly, this happened on a professional social media networking site “in front of” literally thousands of people. And the bully honestly believes I should cower.
By the way, the original poster of the Dilbert cartoon appeared to be a young man who would be representative of the “youth culture” referenced in it. He received more than 5 pages of responses. Those pages consisted of replies like these shown below, in stark contrast to the hours-long personal and professional attack I received:
Thank you for the 200 new followers I picked up on LinkedIn today, bully. I’ll make sure I send an update to my network with this post when it goes live.