I’m not a fan of social media. It’s definitely a net negative for society, and for the vast majority of users it is mostly negative. I gave up Facebook about fifteen years ago. I’ve tried various other platforms and the only one I truly miss is Google Buzz. Oh Google Buzz. Taken from us in your prime.

You don’t remember Google Buzz? Maybe that’s why I love it so.

But I have had a LinkedIn account forever because, well, you need one. For your career.

I guess we’re going to find out if I’ve been a big dumb, time wasting idiot this whole time because I’m done with LinkedIn, for the time being.

This isn’t how you do security

I decided to tighten down access to my valuable LinkedIn account a couple weeks back. Add a passkey. Switch to a different email address. Make sure I have backup MFA available.

Unfortunately, one or all of those actions made LinkedIn think my account was hacked. Did they email, call or text me? Nope. They locked my account and said “Hey, if you want it back you just need to upload your drivers license, send us proof of life, and take a video selfie.”

I looked around for a link that said “Maybe something a little less intrusive” and, when I found and clicked on it, they said “Hey, you don’t want to upload your personal documents? OK, just, print this affidavit, take it to a notary, get it notarized, then upload the document along with some additional documentation and we’ll get your account back.”

I wasn’t crazy about that option either so I looked around for a support email to reach out to or a number to call. And sure enough they had one! I just had to log in to my LinkedIn account to get access to it.

Hmmmmmm.

So I made another LinkedIn account with a different email address, then I opened a ticket and they said “Yeah, we can’t do anything until you upload that driver’s license, man.”

I replied “I’d rather not. How about you delete that account and I just start over with this new one I created?” to which they replied “Well, we can’t delete it until you upload your driver’s license.” To which I replied “OK, will it remain locked and unavailable indefinitely? If that’s the case I’ll just leave it on your server until the heat death of the universe and I’ll use this new one.” To which they replied “Yeah, if you want it unlocked we’ll need the driver’s license” to which I replied “What about the question I asked about just leaving it unavailable?” To which they … locked my second account.

This time I hadn’t changed any security settings or anything. Maybe they thought I was a scammer who was duplicating a legitimate account. Or maybe they just got tired of me asking them questions without first providing a signed and notarized affidavit. I guess we’ll never know.

The problem is, they have access to so much stuff. My original email address. My new email address. My alternate email address. My phone number. My work email. They could’ve reached out to any of those and said “Hey, is this really you?” and I would’ve told them “Yes, I’m me.” and they could’ve unlocked the account. They could’ve engaged with me in any meaningful way, but they don’t do that.

Nobody does that. I’ve had to help recover facebook accounts and twitter accounts and they are ALL awful to work with, because their goal is NOT to provide support for the users, because support costs money and they don’t spend money on their users. They spend money on their customers — you know, people that pay for ads.

There’s a million ways to better secure and support these kinds of accounts. But they just do the bare minimum so that it seems like they’re doing something. In reality they’re making a bigger risk than what they’re closing up.

I’ve still got a blog!

You’re here! Reading the blog! I’m going to be honest, it feels weird to not be on any kind of social media … hold on a second.

OK, I’m back. I had created a bluesky account and I had to go delete it. NOW I’m completely social media free. It feels very weird to not have that LinkedIn account, if I’m being honest. I guess we’ll see how it goes.