City Life founder-turned-PR, and now author, Andrew Spinoza has been kicked off LinkedIn. His crime, it appears, is having an old account he has never used.
The former journalist, and author of best-selling cultural history book Manchester Unspun, has consequently found himself unable to communicate to his 2,800 followers on the Microsoft-owned social media platform, and is no longer able to learn about the B2B marketing funnel, how to best plan his crypto journey, his best bet for life coaching, or utterly irrelevant job offers from attractive ladies in the Balkans.
Spinoza says that, after verifying his identity, LinkedIn wrote to him to say he had duplicated accounts, which the platform claimed was a “misuse of the service.” Spinoza admits that he set up an account when LinkedIn was “just getting going,” when he was co-owner of SKV, his former PR company, but never gave it much thought – an opinion we can probably all relate to, unless we’re looking for ideas about the B2B marketing funnel, how to best plan our crypto journey, our best bet for life coaching, or utterly irrelevant job offers from attractive ladies in the Balkans.
The old account has three followers, and has never posted, and Spinoza no longer has access to the email address that set the account up. Our own very brief perfunctory research unveils two accounts for Spinoza under the SKV mantle so, although it doesn’t justify LinkedIn blocking him, perhaps he should stop creating accounts at 3am.
Spinoza’s actual account has over 2.8k followers and, bizarrely, no longer shows up on a LinkedIn search. He has been using his account to promote himself for speaking opportunities through his agency Pomona Partners, and to contact people in the course of research for his next Manchester history book (his last one was decent, by way of a review).
All joking aside, and bearing in mind that LinkedIn is a free service with no actual obligation to its users, it probably is a something of an inconvenience to have yourself removed from it if you use it as a a major source of employment. Spinoza says that, despite multiple pleas to LinkedIn’s AI overlords, and the supply of all relevant details of the two accounts, he remains blocked, in a Black Mirroresque deletion of his existence.
He adds that he has dealt with three people at LinkedIn, all of whom use only first names. Trust and consumer support consultant Aditya requested a plenitude of ID to verify his account. Fellow trust and consumer support consultant Suzanne provided instructions on how to send details through his LinkedIn accounts, which, err, he was locked out of. Finally, member safety and recovery consultant Zoya, told him: “LinkedIn has reviewed your request to appeal the restriction placed on your account and will be maintaining our original decision. Access to the account will remain restricted”.
Spinoza doesn’t seem overtly bitter, and god knows I’d love to get off LinkedIn and its advice as I don’t need advice on the B2B marketing funnel, how to best plan my crypto journey, my best bet for life coaching, or utterly irrelevant job offers from attractive ladies in the Balkans, but the banned Spinmeister makes a valid point.
“LinkedIn explicitly state they offer an appeal, but this person/bot who has handled my case says I will have no appeal. ‘Zoya’ also says that my account is being restricted because of the ‘severity and / or number of violations’ – which is simply one empty, unused duplicate account. My crime seems to be one of mild technical ineptness, which is being treated with excessive harshness,” he told Prolific North.
“I accept I should have deleted a duplicate account, but the fact is that it has been unused, not posted from and there has not been a pic or biog info on it.”
I regret to inform you, Mr Spinoza, that you will never see Steven Bartlett again.
