🔗 Share this article

Are your LinkedIn connections viewing you as a thought leader? Do numerous commenters applauding your advice on growing your venture? Do recruiters making contact to explore opportunities?

Should that not be the case, the explanation might be that you're not male.

The Test: Modifying Gender Identity for Increased Reach

Dozens of women participated in a collective professional network test recently following popular discussions indicated that changing their profile gender to "male" enhanced their platform visibility.

Other testers rewrote their profiles to incorporate what they termed "bro-coded" terminology - inserting results-driven professional jargon like "drive", "revolutionize" and "expedite". Anecdotally, their visibility also improved.

Systemic Preference Concerns Raised

The engagement increase has caused some to wonder whether an inherent gender bias in LinkedIn's algorithm prioritizes male users who employ online business jargon.

Like many large social media platforms, LinkedIn employs an algorithm to determine which posts are shown to which users - boosting some while reducing others.

Company Statement

In a recent blog post, LinkedIn recognized the phenomenon but stated it does not consider "demographic information" when deciding content distribution. Instead, the company mentioned that "hundreds of signals" influence how content perform.

Changing gender in your settings does not influence how your content shows up in search or feed.

Personal Experiences

Simone Bonnett, who modified her gender identifiers to "male pronouns" and her profile name to "Simon E", reported extraordinary outcomes.

"The numbers I'm observing show a 1,600% increase in profile views and a thirteen-fold jump in content views," she commented.

Megan Cornish, a marketing expert, began experimenting after observing her reach decline significantly.

The Method

• Initially, she modified her gender to "male"
• Then, she used artificial intelligence to rewrite her profile using "masculine-oriented" language
• Lastly, she recycled previous content with comparable "agentic" language

The outcome was immediate: a more than fourfold rise in reach within seven days.

The Downside

Although the positive results, Cornish expressed dissatisfaction with the approach.

"Before, my content were more personal - concise and insightful, but also friendly and relatable," she stated. "Currently, the masculine version was forceful and self-assured - similar to a white male swaggering around."

She discontinued the test after one week, saying "Each day I persisted, and results improved, I became more frustrated."

Mixed Results

Some participants experienced positive results. One writer who changed both her gender to "man" and her ethnicity to "white" described a decrease in reach and interaction.

"We understand there's algorithmic bias, but it's extremely difficult to understand how it functions in particular situations or the reasons behind it," she commented.

Broader Implications

These experiments coincide with ongoing discussions about LinkedIn's distinctive position as both a business platform and social space.

Recent changes in the past few months have apparently resulted in female creators experiencing markedly lower exposure, leading to informal experiments where identical content by male and female users received vastly different reach.

System Details

According to LinkedIn, the network uses AI systems to classify and spread content based on various elements, including what's shared and the user's professional identity.

The company claims it frequently assesses its algorithms, including "checks for inequalities based on gender."

Company representative suggested that recent declines in some users' reach might stem from increased competition due to more content on the network.

Changing Landscape

According to a tester noted, "masculine-oriented language" appears to be increasing on the platform.

"Users typically consider LinkedIn as more professional and refined," she remarked. "This is evolving. It's turning into increasingly aggressive and less controlled."