Jason Jay Smart • Advising leaders in the spheres of national security

Dec 14, 2024

Is LinkedIn Russia’s favorite social media?? Summed up by its title, the New York Times’ “How China uses LinkedIn to recruit spies abroad” highlights that LinkedIn is used by our enemies to identify Westerners whom they then recruit to commit espionage. Why would Russia NOT do such things?

Unlike Chinese intelligence, which typically poses under the cover of being “a private business interested in hiring experts,” Russia is brazen. In fact, LinkedIn allows the Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB), “the principal security agency of Russia,” to operate a page on LinkedIn. If one searches, you can find people using LinkedIn who self-identify as current employees of Russian intelligence.

The problem is not only that LinkedIn allows sanctioned organizations to have pages. It is that LinkedIn’s administrators are oblivious (or not?) that being the platform for foreign intelligence services’ to violate US and EU laws makes LinkedIn a party to the damage being done to our national security.

The FSB carries out assassinations, sabotage, arson, & (of course) espionage in our countries. Globally, the FSB is a business partner of Hezbollah, Hamas, Latin drug cartels, the Maduro dictatorship, and other (sanctioned) evil-doers. So, why does LinkedIn not block Russian intelligence services along with those who self-identify as their employees??

No, the priority of LinkedIn’s “content moderators (a.k.a. “Team of Karens”) is to vigorously patrol the site making sure that no “bad words” are used when someone flags an “offensive word.”

So Kafkaesque in their absurd departure from reality, LinkedIn’s moderators warned me for including a direct quote in reporting I did in my capacity as a correspondent. What did I write? Well, in English the equivalent would have been writing “the crowd began to cheer, ‘Putin is a Dukk'” – intentionally misspelling the Russian word’s transliteration (one that has been aired on BBC and CNN).

If LinkedIn springs into action to silence the press, for an intentionally misspelled foreign word’s transliteration, it raises a question: Who was offended?

Or, is it not more probable that the word is a pretext, of Russians, to get the anti-Putin message deleted?

LinkedIn’s well-earned reputation for suppressing pro-Ukraine voices, which I discussed with LinkedIn’s (friendly) press team, is due to the arbitrary enforcement of rules. Russia is an expert in using the letter of law, deprived of the spirit of the law, to suppress opponents.

By using our own rules against us, Russia influences the West. Think not? Check out the many government reports about how Russia manipulates elections, in the US and EU, via social media.

So, is LinkedIn being duped, or is it an accomplice? According to the Republican US Senator whom I interviewed for my forthcoming article, regulations come to those who do not regulate themselves. But, apparently until we have federal regulations, the FSB is free do do as it pleases on LinkedIn.