New survey shows 91% of women on LinkedIn report receiving unwanted sexual advances
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About 91% of female LinkedIn users have received romantic advances or inappropriate messages at least once.
In discouraging but not entirely surprising news, a new survey shows that a vast majority of female users on LinkedIn—the popular business and employment-focused social media platform—have received unwanted sexual advances and some form of harassment via the site.
The survey, conducted by Passport-Photo.online, found that 91% of women have received romantic advances or other similarly inappropriate messages via LinkedIn. The survey also found that more than 74% of women use LinkedIn less often as a direct result of the harassment, while almost a quarter of the respondents said they get messages of this nature “daily or every other day.”
About 31% of the inappropriate messages sliding into women’s DMs are propositions for romantic or sexual encounters. Nearly half of the respondents say they immediately respond to the messenger and let them know their message wasn’t wanted or appropriate.
As a result of the harassment, 25% of survey participants expect LinkedIn to implement stricter guidelines and policies.
LinkedIn’s Help section urges people to report content that concerns them—both inappropriate content and anything that may violate their safety.
“After reviewing reported items, we’ll take them down if necessary. It’s against our Privacy Policy to share the identity of someone who flags an item,” LinkedIn says. “We have limited ability to act on content appearing beyond our site unless it’s in direct violation of our brand.”
In other words, LinkedIn isn’t Tinder. There’s no reason why anyone should be sending anything of a romantic nature on a website intended for networking and work-related business.
So please (men), think before you creep. And save all flirting for consenting parties on dating apps.
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