Below is the text of my address to the members of my network and those who follow me on LinkedIn — a social network of professionals and intellectuals.
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Here on LinkedIn, I have over 7,600 people in my network and 8,700 followers. That’s a lot!
I am watching how many people read my posts and how many of them show their reactions — in comments or at least likes, and I am not happy with them…
Here are is why.
Some of my provocative posts on minor topics get up to one and a half million views, thousands of shares and comments (albeit often silly ones). Here is the most famous of such entries:
“I am not sure that it’s appropriate to be dressed in a t-shirt, plain pants and sneakers for meeting officially high guests dressed in suits with ties. Even during time of war.
The field military uniform is for wearing on battlefield, so that it is comfortable in it on the battlefield, but not at an official political event”.
However, my posts on really serious topics with the expectation of support from my colleagues in different countries of the world attract the attention of a couple or — sometimes — several dozen LinkedIn members, and even less likes and comments. It is not even worth mentioning sharing…
This is despite the fact that a significant part of those who belong to my network know me personally. I am surprised by their indifference and ignorance, especially when it comes to the fate of dear to all of us Ukraine.
Many of those who have never crossed paths with me in real life, I comment and support by sharing their texts, but they do not feel the need to even say thank you, as other people do on other social networks. And this despite the fact that I share texts of some of these people not only on my profile, but also outside of LinkedIn on the sites that I administer.
A year ago, in March 2022, I posted on my LinkedIn page the text of the Appeal initiated by the Ukrainians Worldwide Movement Organizational Committee. This Appeal was signed by 250 people from 30 countries. A third of these signatures were given by members of my LinkedIn network, that is, about one percent. One percent! Could have been if not all 100% (8,000), then 50% (4,000), or 25% (2,000), or at least 10% (760-800).
The above-quoted post, which has reached a million and a half readers, shows that the LinkedIn algorithm cannot be blamed for seemingly limiting the availability of posts to a wide audience, as Facebook does.
I understand that there are people to whom I am unsympathetic or toxic. This is normal. After all, it is not about me, but about Ukraine, whose problems I have been concerned with longer than the majority of potential readers of my texts have lived in this world. Don’t like or disagree with what I write? Okay, express your disagreement or your opinion, as did thousands of those from the audience of one and a half million who stood up to defend Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a hero of Ukraine and the whole world, even though he is not one: the time will come, and you will say that I was right. But tell me what you think now!
I know that a lot of those present here are double-minded people, and they do not like my consistency and principledness.
Some of them count on the fact that the president of Ukraine will reward them with an order (they do not care from whose hands they receive the award, — Yanukovych, Poroshenko or Zelenskyy), and therefore are wary of dealing with a person who is constantly in opposition to the government in Ukraine and who allows himself to meticulously analyze and harshly evaluate the actions of that government.
That’s fine, take your chance to defend the government in Ukraine, whatever it is, as hundreds of my opponents have done in their comments, defending Zelenskyy’s t-shirt and wrinkled pants.
But you don’t do even that! Then what do you do and what keeps you in this LinkedIn social network, which, unlike other social networks, is an excellent platform for discussions between intellectuals and professionals?
I’m afraid my question is rhetorical, not because it doesn’t need an answer, but because you can’t answer it. After all, answering, you would have to twist your soul and lie to yourself.
By the way, it’s never late to add your signature to the Appeal initiated by the Ukrainians Worldwide Movement Organizational Committee. It does not concern me personally. It concerns the future of Ukraine, your Ukraine, and the entire civilized world, that is yours as well.
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Dr. Volodymyr Ivanenko | Др. Володимир Іваненко 