By changing their gender setting to “man” and wearing fake mustaches in their photos, more and more women are defying what they denounce as a sexist bias in the algorithms of the professional social network LinkedIn.
Female users began claiming last month that displaying a male identity on the professional networking site had significantly increased their visibility, sparking a chain reaction.
Some changed their name – Simone to Simon –, replaced their pronoun “she” with “he”, or even used artificial intelligence (AI) to rewrite their old posts with a testosterone-filled tone that they thought would better attract the algorithm’s attention. For humor, some people wear a fake mustache in their profile photo.
For what result? Many women say that their visibility and audience interactions on LinkedIn have skyrocketed. Until now calm, the comment areas under their publications suddenly became very lively.
Jo Dalton is successful
“I changed my pronoun on LinkedIn and, without interfering, I broke my own engagement records” – that is, the number of likes, comments, post shares, etc. – wrote Jo Dalton, entrepreneur and investor based in London, adding that this change had increased its visibility by 244%.
“So here I am with a mustache stuck on, out of pure scientific interest, to see if I can trick the algorithm into thinking I’m a man,” she explains.
When an AFP journalist changed her settings to appear as a man, LinkedIn analytics data revealed that the reach of several of her posts increased compared to the previous week, recording thousands of additional clicks.
These LinkedIn experiences reflect long-standing “gender gaps” among working women, says Malin Frithiofsson, managing director of Daya Ventures, which develops and funds women’s health startups and is based in Sweden.
LinkedIn denies
LinkedIn has rejected any accusation of sexism inherent in its operation. “Our algorithms do not use gender as a ranking criterion, and changing the gender on your profile has no impact on how your content appears in search results or the News Feed,” a LinkedIn spokesperson told AFP.
Women who have seen their visibility pushed upwards are now pleading for more transparency on the functioning of the algorithm, which is largely opaque, as well as those of other platforms, which highlight certain profiles and reduce the reach of others.
“I don’t think there is a line of code in LinkedIn’s technical system that says ‘if woman promote less,’” Ms. Frithiofsson wrote in a message published on the platform. But “do I think gender bias can emerge from data capture, algorithmic bubbles, and cultural norms traditionally associated with what a “professional voice” should be? Yes. Absolutely,” she says.
Sakshi Jain, head of security, privacy and AI governance at LinkedIn, said in a post that the platform’s AI systems and algorithms take into account “hundreds of factors,” like network size or a user’s activity to determine the visibility of their posts.
161% more in one man week
And the increase in the volume of content published online has also created more “competition” for attention, she says. This explanation was met with skepticism on the networking site, where greater visibility can bring better career opportunities or higher income.
Rosie Taylor, a journalist based in the United Kingdom, said she found that the increased visibility of her profile “from being a ‘man’ for just one week” caused the number of unique visitors to her newsletter to jump 161% compared to the previous week. This resulted in an 86% increase in new weekly subscriptions through LinkedIn.
“Who knows what success I could have had if the algorithm had considered me as a man from the start?” she asks.
