Have you noticed that your Linkedin Group Discussions and Comments have suddenly and unexpectedly been automatically placed in an ‘Awaiting Moderation’ queue? You are a victim of SWAM.

Are you a busy Linkedin Group Owner or Manager getting messages from members about being blocked? You are a victim of SWAM. So read on because

sometimes the friendly dolphins get caught in the tuna nets

Recently, and without any announcement or explanation that I could find, Linkedin initiated a process which they call SWAM “Site-Wide Auto-Moderation” such that when a Group Owner or Manager executed a ‘Block & Delete’ of a member from a group, that member is automatically put on moderation in ALL groups they belong to.

Clearly, this is intended as an anti-spam measure. But the law of unintended consequences applies and many members are suffering collateral damage through friendly fire.

If you are a Group member who is getting a ‘Submitted For Review’ message when you post to a Linkedin Group

There is no automatic appeal process. You can’t get it fixed by Linkedin Customer Service. You won’t get a message from the relevant Linkedin Group saying that your post breached the rules. You can’t find out which Group Owner or Manager blocked and deleted your posting. You are on your own.

You have to send a message to every Group Owner/Manager asking them to check and change your status to ‘Approved to Post’ (see below for how to help them do this for you).

It is, obviously, best to draft a message in your text editor and then copy into individual personal messages to each Owner/Manager. To send the message to the Owner/Manager you need to do this:

  • Go to the Group
  • Hit the ‘More’ menu (to the right of the Discussions – members etc. menu)
  • Select ‘Group Profile’ and hover your cursor over the Group owner’s name in the ‘About this Group’ box on the top right of the screen until the pop-up profile bubble appears, then hit the ‘Send message’ link. This is a good way to send messages to fellow group members even though you are not directly connected with them!

If you are a Linkedin Group Owner / Manager who is getting ‘Why am I being victimised by having my posts submitted for review and moderated?’ messages from members who have been blocked elsewhere.

If you have not flagged an individual’s messages as part of your own moderation activities, and you value your members’ contributions to your group, you will have to manually change their posting status. Here’s how: This is not as clear as it should be but so stick with me here…..

  •  Hit the Manage menu in your Group
  • Hit ‘Participants’ link in the ‘Manage Group’ menu on the left of the screen
  • Unfortunately it is not as simple as going to the ‘Blocked’ tab, so ignore that and go, instead to the Members’ Tab.
  • If you are responding to a member’s request simply punch their name into the search box. If you are looking to do a group-wide audit (good luck!) you will have to check each member record in the list for the  ‘Requires moderation’ against their name.
  • Once you have found the member, you will see a ‘Requires moderation’ note to the right. Hit the ‘Change permissions’ link and change to ‘Approved to post’.

I suggest very strongly, that you do not use the ‘Block and Delete’ feature unless there are very strong grounds for doing so.

I cannot see Linkedin investing much time and effort into changing this unintended consequence soon and I hope this is useful. If it is please let me know. Matt Mansfield wrote a fuller post with official Linkedin responses which I have found useful.

Till next time…..

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