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Are your LinkedIn connections viewing you as a thought leader? Are hordes of respondents applauding your insights on expanding your venture? Do recruiters making contact to explore collaborations?

If not, the reason could be your gender.

The Experiment: Changing Profile Gender for Better Visibility

Dozens of women participated in a collective LinkedIn experiment this week following popular discussions suggested that changing their profile gender to "male" enhanced their platform visibility.

Other testers rewrote their profiles to include what they called "bro-coded" language - inserting results-driven professional jargon like "drive", "transform" and "expedite". Anecdotally, their exposure also improved.

Algorithmic Bias Questions Brought Up

The engagement increase has caused some to wonder whether a built-in sexism in the platform's system prioritizes male users who use online business jargon.

Similar to many large networking sites, LinkedIn employs an algorithm to decide which content appear to which members - promoting some while reducing others.

Company Statement

In a recent company announcement, LinkedIn recognized the trend but stated it does not factor in "demographic information" when deciding content distribution. Rather, the company explained that "numerous factors" affect how posts perform.

Changing gender in your settings does not affect how your posts appears in search or feed.

Individual Results

A social media consultant, who modified her gender identifiers to "male pronouns" and her profile name to "Simon E", described remarkable outcomes.

"The statistics I'm seeing show a sixteen-fold rise in profile views and a thirteen-fold jump in content views," she noted.

Another professional, a marketing expert, started testing after observing her audience decline substantially.

The Method

• First, she modified her profile gender to "male"
• Subsequently, she used AI tools to rephrase her profile using "masculine-oriented" language
• Lastly, she repurposed old posts with similar "assertive" style

The outcome was instantaneous: a more than fourfold rise in visibility within seven days.

The Downside

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

"Before, my posts were softer - brief and clever, but also warm and relatable," she explained. "Now, the masculine version was forceful and self-assured - like a Caucasian man swaggering around."

She abandoned the test after seven days, saying "Every day I persisted, and results improved, I became more frustrated."

Mixed Results

Some testers experienced favorable results. Cass Cooper who modified both her gender to "man" and her ethnicity to "white" described a decrease in visibility and engagement.

"We understand there's systemic preference, but it's very challenging to understand how it functions in specific cases or the reasons behind it," she remarked.

Broader Implications

These tests coincide with ongoing conversations about LinkedIn's unique role as both a business platform and community site.

Platform modifications in the past few months have apparently resulted in women professionals experiencing significantly reduced visibility, leading to informal experiments where the same posts by male and female users received vastly different reach.

System Details

According to LinkedIn, the network uses artificial intelligence to categorize and spread posts based on various elements, including post content and the member's career profile.

The company claims it frequently assesses its algorithms, including "examinations of gender-related disparities."

A spokesperson proposed that current reductions in certain members' visibility might stem from higher volume due to more content on the platform.

Evolving Environment

As one participant observed, "bro-coding" 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 unpredictable."