Thread by @BrooksWhaleX

If you have a LinkedIn account, you need to read this right now.

LinkedIn is scraping your profile, your posts, your messages, and your activity to train their AI models.

You agreed to it without knowing it. It was turned on by default. There is active legal pressure in multiple countries over how.

Here are 5 moves to shut it off.

The switches are buried where LinkedIn hopes you never look:🧵

First, what is actually happening.

In 2024, LinkedIn quietly updated its privacy settings to allow your personal data to be used for AI training. Your posts. Your profile information. Your messages. Your activity patterns. All of it was opted into by default.

When European users and privacy advocates noticed and complained, LinkedIn turned it off for EU and UK users due to legal pressure from regulators. But users in the US, Canada, Australia, and most of the rest of the world remained opted in by default with no notification.

Microsoft owns LinkedIn. LinkedIn feeds that data into Microsoft's broader AI ecosystem. It is still happening unless you manually opt out right now.

Move 1: Opt Out of AI Training

This is the main switch and the one LinkedIn buried deepest.

• Click your profile photo → Settings & Privacy
• Data Privacy → Data for Generative AI Improvement
• Turn off "Use my data for training content creation AI models"

One toggle. LinkedIn stops using your posts, articles, and profile content to train generative AI models.

This was turned on without asking you. Turning it off takes 10 seconds. LinkedIn will not notify you that this existed unless you find it yourself.

Move 2: Stop LinkedIn Sharing Your Data With Third Parties

LinkedIn shares behavioral data with advertising partners and third-party analytics companies by default.

• Settings & Privacy → Data Privacy → Personal Demographic Information → Turn off
• Advertising Data → Turn off "Audience Insights data shared with advertisers"
• Third Party Data → Turn off "Data shared with LinkedIn partners for research"

Three separate toggles buried across two submenus. All three need to be off.

LinkedIn makes it deliberately non-obvious that these are separate settings. Most people turn off one and assume they are covered. They are not.

Move 3: Lock Down Your Activity Visibility

Right now LinkedIn is tracking and potentially broadcasting every move you make on the platform.

Who you searched for. Which profiles you viewed. Which job listings you clicked. Which posts you lingered on.

• Settings & Privacy → Visibility → Profile viewing options → Set to "Private mode"
• Visibility → Followers → Turn off "Make follow primary"
• Visibility → Story viewing options → Turn off

Private mode stops people and companies from knowing you viewed their profile. This matters especially when you are job hunting, researching competitors, or looking at recruiter profiles without wanting them to know.

Move 4: Delete Your Advertising Profile

LinkedIn has built a detailed advertising profile based on everything you have done on the platform since you created your account.

• Settings & Privacy → Advertising data → Advertising preferences
• Turn off every toggle on this page
• Then: Data Privacy → Manage your data and activity → Download your data

Download your data first so you can see exactly what LinkedIn has collected about you. Then go back and turn off every advertising preference toggle. LinkedIn stops using your behavioral history to target you with ads and stops adding to that profile going forward.

Move 5: Audit Connected Apps and Remove Access

Every third party app you ever connected to LinkedIn still has access to your account data unless you manually revoke it.

• Settings & Privacy → Data Privacy → Other applications → Permitted services

Go through every single app on that list. Ask yourself: do I still use this? Does it need access to my LinkedIn?

Remove everything you do not actively use. Former employers' tools. Old job application platforms. Marketing apps you tried once. Every connected app that still has access can pull your LinkedIn data on demand.

Revoke access to everything you do not recognise or no longer use.

Here is the full checklist. Do all five now:

✅ AI Training: Data Privacy → Generative AI Improvement → Off
✅ Third Party Sharing: Advertising data → All three toggles → Off
✅ Activity Visibility: Profile viewing → Private mode → On
✅ Ad Profile: Advertising preferences → All toggles off → Download your data
✅ Connected Apps: Permitted services → Remove everything unused

Same LinkedIn account. Same profile. Five settings. Microsoft and LinkedIn stop using your content, your behavior, and your professional data to train AI models the moment you hit save.

Go do this now before you forget. Then send it to someone who needs to see it.

I hope you've found this thread helpful.

Follow me @BrooksWhaleX for more.

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