LinkedIn is cracking down on ‘AI slop’ with new reporting tool

SUNNYVALE, California – LinkedIn has a new mission: Cleaning up the AI-generated junk in its feed.

The Microsoft-owned platform on July 30 unveiled a “seems like AI slop” button so users can report posts that appear to be low-quality posts written by AI.

“People come to LinkedIn to connect with real people and share their real perspectives, ideas and expertise,” Hari Srinivasan, a chief product officer at the company, wrote in a post announcing the change.

Srinivasan was careful not to disparage all AI use, however. While the move includes a notable rollback of the platform’s “enhance your post” feature, which made it easy for users to draft posts using AI, the platform still encourages AI use for certain tasks, like proofreading.

“AI and slop are not the same thing,” Srinivasan wrote. “Many people refine thoughts with AI.”

The changes follow growing user complaints about the flood of AI-generated content on the platform, with some going as far as to call out authors for telltale characteristics of AI-writing, like using excessive em-dashes and stylistic tics like “it’s not X, it’s Y.”

Many users applauded the move in the comments on Srinivasan’s post. “Finally!” one wrote. “In a not so distant future I feel ‘human written’ under posts will have the same feel that ‘organic’ has in the produce aisle… people will seek it out.”

Others, however, questioned the subjective nature of “slop” and warned the feature could be misused. LinkedIn’s stance felt accusatory, they said, as if it were blaming users for using AI content creation features on the site. “I dislike shoddy content as much as the next person, but... shifting the blame to members feels hypocritical,” one commenter wrote.

Others noted, approvingly, that Srinivasan appeared to have avoided the glossy formatting and flawless grammar typical of chatbots. “Smart to keep the typos and extra spaces in this post,” one user said. “We can tell a human wrote it.” BLOOMBERG