Cyber Harassment? or Cyber Bullying? A LinkedIn Tale

Do you maintain your own LinkedIn profile? Hopefully you do. Linda Eagle unfortunately did not and it came back to bite her, This story was in my local arts weekly and I have been meaning to share.

Linda Eagle is a renowned banking trainer and when she was let go from her consultancy firm a federal complaint was issued that accused her former firm of stealing her reputation, privacy, and her identity. How did this happen? She had an assistant that maintained her LinkedIn profile. After she was let go the complaint alleges that former colleagues logged in and changed her password and locked her out. To make matters even worse they replaced her name and photo on her profile with the new interim CEO. The job history, education, contacts, recommendations, groups, etc all remained, but a new name and face added.

Once the lawsuit was filed all of Linda Eagle's information was restored and she once again regained access to her account, but what a headache. It should serve as a reminder to be careful with your social media presence. Claims were made that this was a form of corporate cyber bullying, but a representative from the National Crime Prevention Council responded with saying it was more a case of cyber harassment. What do you think?

If you for whatever reason have others maintain your social media profiles you might want to think twice.

*Credit to New Haven Advocate for sharing this story

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Valentino Martinez on August 25, 2011 at 1:10am

Tim,

I think this is "all the above" --this is Cyber Harassment, Bullying and Cyber "Sabotage (Misrepresentation): a deliberate action aimed at (enabling one entity) by weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, (misrepresentation) or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions (in this case through a person's professional persona). One who engages in sabotage is a saboteur." (Wikipedia) Depending on the damage done, dollar damage in particular, charges can be applied for a conviction.

Sabotage, Harassment, Bullying, etc., all suggest someone(s) is treacherous, and devious, enough to do this in plain sight.

I think LinkedIn's system people should be able to detect, deter and track this happenstance. Oddities like this can be traced with the aid of the victim. Clearly the concern is: a predator, or prankster, is loose and enjoying the caper(s).

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Permalink Reply by Tim Spagnola on August 25, 2011 at 9:28am

Tino - I do agree with your comment about IN system. You would think that before it reached the point of a lawsuit that some sort of mechanism would be in place to safeguard this type of practice from happening. Then again I think that if your foolish enough to give away the keys of your car- chances are someone might take it. Thanks for sharing your feedback - always appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by lisa rokusek on August 25, 2011 at 10:02am

When I left my last employer around four years ago so a while back in internet days) I carefully changed my primary email address from my paid (paid by me, not by my company) LinkedIn account to my personal email address, but as per their instructions I left my old email listed on the account but not prime. Soon after when I went to log in I could not. I also couldn't find my profile at all. I called and called to get a live person on the phone (being a recruiter comes in handy) and found that my email address had been changed back to my old one and my password was changed and my name actually removed from the account. A woman had called in and pretended to be me and they allowed her to make that change.

This was in the early days of Twitter and it was pretty easy to find a higher ranking customer service rep linked to fraud who asked for details from me, did a study, determined the IP address that was used and pretty soon I had my account back and my old employer was "banned for life". It was also determined that he had stolen other people's profiles who had left the company as well.

I accepted a free account for a year for for a settlement with the condition that he would not be allowed back on LinkedIn. I could have should have made more noise but was busy getting my business off the ground. My old employer wasn't allowed to have an account for several years but he is back now. I really think LinkedIn doesn't care all that much as no one would talk to me about it when I called to inquire last year. They probably won't until someone can slap them hard. Don't get me wrong, I dig LinkedIn, but the rules of the web are still pretty much the wild west and we play by their rules. Has anyone noticed the changes in terms on jigsaw? If you use them much you will.

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Permalink Reply by Valentino Martinez on August 25, 2011 at 12:31pm

Wow, Lisa--Tim's shared story is magnified by your personal experience.

Not long ago it took a week of Sundays for me to get back into LinkedIn having been locked-out. I had to create a twin just to stay connected. The response time is sooo bad it seems to say LinkedIn is terribly understaffed with layers of people who cannot make a decision until ALARM bells are ringing, or blood is on the wall.