‘Doing a Bradbury’: Linkedin is winning the social media war
Private Media CEO Will Hayward observes that Linkedin has come through as 'the last man standing'.
Every social network has tried, at some point, to claim the mantle of the “digital town square.”
In 2019, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote:
“Over the last 15 years, Facebook and Instagram have helped people connect with friends, communities, and interests in the digital equivalent of a town square.”
More recently, Instagram head Adam Mosseri posted on Threads:
“The goal is to create a public square for communities on Instagram that never really embraced Twitter.”
Will Hayward
Meta’s engagement with journalism was always a key tenet of this approach, with hundreds of employees focused on building tools so that journalists could use its platform as something akin to the town crier, or news hawker (“Extra! Extra!”). I’d agree with their original view that in order to build this place for people to come together, news and journalism must play a part.
While Elon Musk was far more hostile to news organisations, just before he completed his acquisition of Twitter- shortly after trying to back out of it – Musk tweeted:
“Twitter is the digital town square, where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”
None of these platforms have succeeded in building a true civic space – at least not in the aspirational, democratic sense of the word. With rampant misinformation, culture war bait, and a deep institutional apathy towards public interest journalism, the town square promise remains largely unfulfilled.
Take Meta. Put aside its long history of bad-faith engagement with democratic processes and civil discourse. Today, it’s not just indifferent to news – it seems to almost be willing governments to remove it from its platforms. In Australia, more than a year after backing out of the News Media Bargaining Code, Meta has offered no alternative. Most observers agree: it would prefer to remove news entirely. It’s just not worth the effort.
As Mosseri himself bluntly put it:
“From a platform’s perspective, any incremental engagement or revenue [news and journalism] might drive is not at all worth the scrutiny, negativity (let’s be honest), or integrity risks that come along with them.”
Twitter — now X — has gone from flawed to farcical. Whilst the original version had many of its own issues – the dual class system of those with the blue ticks and those without was, by the end, absurd – what has replaced it is many times worse. A recent study found that hate speech has jumped by around 50% since Musk’s takeover. His stated goal of creating a free-speech haven has been repeatedly undermined by the censorship of users he personally disagrees with.
Other alternatives exist – Mastodon, Bluesky, Tiktok, Reddit – but none combine scale, credibility, and functionality in a way that truly replaces what Twitter and Facebook once promised.
Which brings us, unexpectedly, to Linkedin.
Steven Bradbury won gold in unsual circumstances in 2002
Like Australian speed skater Steven Bradbury who stayed upright while others fell, Linkedin has emerged as the surprise winner.
Long mocked as the nerdiest of platforms, it now boasts over 1.2 billion members globally – including 60% of the Australian population, and 90% of all working professionals.
It still has its quirks. There are clumsy sales pitches from strangers. Cringeworthy CEO “journeys.” And lately, a rise in AI-generated nonsense. But it’s also – crucially – a far more civil place than its peers.
Why? Because Linkedin posts are tied not just to your real name, but to your employer and professional reputation. The cost of vitriol is higher when it sits next to your company logo.
(However, as economist Thomas Sowell put it: “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” Anonymity, for all its flaws, once made Twitter vital during events like the Arab Spring. It allowed people to speak out under threat. Linkedin, by contrast, is not a safe space for this kind of dissent.)
And yet, Linkedin seems to be having a moment – part accident, part design. Major politicians now use it. Luxury brands are increasingly present. I see more and more journalists posting on there. MrBeast is on it. Kim Kardashian isn’t (yet).
The Linkedin ad that broadens the network’s position
Video is a growing force. Linkedin recently ran an ad positioning itself as:
“No longer just the place for job updates and work announcements. Our platform is transforming into a hub for news, entertainment, and professional storytelling—with a video-first lens.”
Amidst the humblebrags, I’m seeing more and more posts on politics, culture, and ideas. It’s still Linkedin, but it’s changing. And news, despite the recent redundancies (which are a group wide initiative from Microsoft) seems to be part of the plan.
So, for now, Linkedin may well be doing a Bradbury. It has scale. It has civility. And its team appears genuinely invested in building a space for thoughtful public conversation.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t fall over too.
The greatest day of my life will be when I get to delete LinkedIn.
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LI has been a cesspool of self promotion for a very long time.
If its the “Town Square”, its every individual climbing up on a podium and screaming about their latest promotion or AI related content.
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Seems like not everyone agrees 🙁
Don’t worry Will, the same people running it down are probably the same people guilty of what they hate about the platform.
To be honest, I am actually enjoying the recent algorithm changes favouring deeper, more intelligent discussions from actually smart people I don’t know rather than the usual shameless self promotion from people in my network who are just doing the same thing they were doing four years ago.
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