🔗 Share this article

Do your professional networking connections recognizing you as a industry expert? Are hordes of respondents applauding your advice on expanding your venture? Are headhunters reaching out to explore opportunities?

Should that not be the case, the reason could be that you're not male.

The Experiment: Modifying Profile Gender to achieve Increased Reach

Numerous female professionals joined an organized LinkedIn experiment this week following viral posts indicated that switching their profile gender to "male" enhanced their platform visibility.

Other testers modified their professional summaries to include what they called "bro-coded" terminology - adding results-driven business buzzwords like "drive", "transform" and "accelerate". Anecdotally, their exposure also improved.

Algorithmic Bias Concerns Brought Up

The engagement increase has led some to speculate whether an inherent sexism in LinkedIn's algorithm favors male users who use online business jargon.

Similar to most major social media platforms, LinkedIn employs a computerized system to decide which content appear to which users - promoting some while suppressing others.

Company Statement

In a recent company announcement, LinkedIn recognized the phenomenon but stated it does not consider "demographic information" when determining content distribution. Instead, the company mentioned that "numerous factors" influence how content are received.

Changing gender on your profile does not affect how your content appears in search or feed.

Individual Results

A social media consultant, who modified her gender identifiers to "male pronouns" and her profile name to "a masculine version", described extraordinary results.

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

Megan Cornish, a communications strategist, began experimenting after observing her audience decline significantly.

The Method

• Initially, she modified her profile gender to "male"
• Then, she used artificial intelligence to rephrase her professional summary using "male-coded" language
• Finally, she recycled old posts with similar "agentic" style

The outcome was immediate: a 415% increase in reach within seven days.

The Negative Aspect

Despite the positive results, Cornish expressed unhappiness with the approach.

"Before, my content were more personal - concise and insightful, but also friendly and human," she stated. "Now, the masculine version was assertive and self-assured - like a white male swaggering around."

She discontinued the experiment after one week, saying "Each day I continued, and results got better, I became more frustrated."

Varying Outcomes

Some participants encountered favorable results. Cass Cooper who changed both her profile gender to "male" and her race to "white" described a decrease in reach and engagement.

"We understand there's algorithmic bias, but it's extremely difficult to understand how it functions in specific cases or the reasons behind it," she commented.

Wider Consequences

These experiments coincide with ongoing conversations about LinkedIn's distinctive role as both a business platform and social space.

Platform modifications in the past few months have reportedly resulted in female creators experiencing significantly reduced exposure, leading to informal experiments where identical posts by male and female users received vastly different audience engagement.

Technical Explanation

According to LinkedIn, the network uses AI systems to categorize and spread posts based on various elements, including post content and the user's professional identity.

The company claims it regularly evaluates its algorithms, including "examinations of inequalities based on gender."

Company representative suggested that recent declines in certain members' visibility might stem from increased competition due to more content on the platform.

Evolving Environment

According to a tester noted, "bro-coding" appears to be growing on the network.

"People often view LinkedIn as more businesslike and refined," she commented. "This is evolving. It's becoming increasingly aggressive and less controlled."