What are LinkedIn’s ‘community standards’?

Uwe Parpart is publisher and editor-in-chief of Asia Times. Asia Times recently published an article by Stephen Bryen, “Ukrainian military casualties are big trouble for Biden.” The article reviewed information about the surprising numbers of estimated Ukrainian casualties – surprising because such numbers are rarely reported in the Western news media. At the social-media company LinkedIn, some anonymous someone didn’t like the story for reasons that we are not permitted to know. That anonymous someone said the story violated LinkedIn’s policy forbidding “misinformation,” blocked the story and – without explaining what information he/she/they considered misinformation – rejected an appeal. “After taking a second look, we confirmed your content goes against our Professional Community Policies,” Anonymous wrote. So you can’t read it on LinkedIn. As for misinformation, the charge is preposterous. The article was based on statements made by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley. Both of them concluded that Ukraine’s military casualties were about 100,000 soldiers. Our writer used that information to assess that if Ukraine keeps losing troops in numbers more or less in parallel to those of Russian troop losses, Ukraine will have trouble replenishing them. Author Bryen noted that Russia also has replenishment problems – but argued that in terms of sustainability Russia is better positioned. Beyond that, he assessed efforts to reach a negotiated settlement. US President Joe Biden currently opposes such a settlement as he believes that Ukraine and NATO and the US are winning. Read the story for yourself if you haven’t done so already and we are confident you’ll agree that it does not resort to name-calling or prevarication; it does not present concocted conspiracy theories or attempt to whip up the ire of a violent rabble. Rather, it offers a straightforward political-economic analysis in the tradition of the first-rate journalism that for a quarter century has made Asia Times beloved by its readers around the world. While the article was not intended to please everyone, many readers were indeed pleased to be placed in possession of important, not widely disseminated information that affects in a major way questions of war and peace, life and death. The bottom line is that there is nothing in this professionally reported, written and edited article that conceivably could violate genuine “community standards.” Author Bryen protested, futilely, that “hiding behind fake ‘standards’ and cutting you off from addressing any real person is typical of how censorship in totalitarian countries operates.” He also noted that he “used to respect LinkedIn as operating outside of the all-too-common social-media censorship system.” Now, in his view, “LinkedIn is no better than the rest.” That, we are saddened to have to say, is our view as well.