This post has nothing to do with clueless doctors but a lot with clueless people.

I have joined LinkedIn while I was still a student at Stanford and LinkedIn just started. At that time it was a fun site for networking and finding jobs. Over the years it has become more of an information exchange place as well but still remaining within the circles of the particular professionals of the subjects being discussed. Anyone can start a conversation and henceforth that person is immediately what is called a “group moderator.” Being a moderator means that any person of the moderator’s dislike may be moderated out of the group–moderating out pretty much means banned in this case, albeit you may stay in the group, but you cannot open your mouth without the moderator checking out if what you said was to his or her liking.

At one point of my career, about two years ago, I was invited to join a group discussing photography that stirred up my interest in a new kind of camera they were discussing. The group owner was a guy who moderated about 15 other groups, owned and bankrupted about 10 firms, attended 10+ colleges but never got his PhD hard as he tried but in his opinion he “had earned his PhD” and that was that–these are all on his personal bio.

So when I joined the group and the conversation, the topic of PhD came up–I no longer remember the circumstances–but he started to feel stifled that I had a PhD for real, while he did not so he did not like the color of my eyes and I was moderated out no matter what I said. All is well you say; he has the right to not like me for having a PhD. What you may not realize is that he moderated me out of the entire LinkedIn, globally!

Yep, LinkedIn is set up in such a way that a single moderation in one group will lock you out of all other groups. There is one group that is in fact for those alone who have been moderated out of other groups and there are hundreds of people in there. I know many people who start their own groups because they were moderated out of all others and that is the only way they can communicate with people of like mind and interest!

Thus a single person with questionable motives can moderate every single member out of every single LinkedIn group by a single click on the button per person!

So write a note to LinkedIn you say? Complain? Yes… I did.

I have been writing now for over two years, getting absolutely nowhere and still not able to comment anywhere. Today I tweeted to the CEO of LinkedIn to change this and today I officially filed a BBB complaint. If it comes down to  having to sue them, I may start a class action lawsuit against LinkedIn with all those who have been moderated out of all conversations by a single person who did not like the color of their eyes!

It is ridiculous how LinkedIn has this moderation set up that a single person can kick every single other member out of basically any activity based on one comment that he/she may not have liked, or like in my case, a personality trait. I even wrote to Linked in that this person harassed me–I have emails of that for proof… no one gave a damn!

Well let us all change that! And let us start changing that now! Join the group I just created called OutModerated. 🙂