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You may have missed it, but there has been a recent uproar in the freelance translator community regarding a request that they saw from LinkedIn asking them, in essence, to work for LinkedIn for free. In some ways, LinkedIn has always been asking its users to volunteer their time, asking its users to report spam, flag profile pictures, report on “Questions” that should not be on the Answers board, flag groups, etc. It makes one wonder how much the average LinkedIn user should work for free on behalf of a for-profit company.
Let’s take a closer look at the translator issue.
LinkedIn released a blog post recently that informed the world that they are trying to make their platform more localized for their 20+ million international users by proceeding forward in translating the site into many languages. I think that all LinkedIn users should applaud this, and I am looking forward specifically to seeing Japanese and Chinese versions made available in the near future.
As you can read on the LinkedIn blog post, LinkedIn directly contacted 12,000 professionals in the translation field that were already LinkedIn members asking for their advice on how to go about doing this. The article states that thousands of people did reply, and made note that 38% of those that responded would do some translation work so that they can put it on their resume.
I didn’t think much of the above blog post at the time, but now that I reflect on it, LinkedIn is treating their users as if it is an open community and that everyone is working on some sort of collaborative open source project. However, LinkedIn from my understanding is not an open source software project and it is not a non-profit organization either. If a profitable business was going to translate their site, wouldn’t they just hire a reputable localization company and then just execute on it? Why can’t LinkedIn just do the same?
The article that first mentioned the uproar took this idea further, and I quote from their website:
Professional translators balked at the request from LinkedIn, posting numerous comments that boil down to a single question, “Why should I work for free, especially for a for-profit company?” The translators’ dismay at the situation even led to the formation of a new LinkedIn Group,Translators Against Crowdsourcing for Commercial Business. Since its formation three days ago, the group has attracted 225 members. Why are so many people up in arms? We see three reasons: [I list the first one below]
Most people don’t value what translators do. Freelance translators work tirelessly to dispel the myth that any person who speaks two languages can be a translator. Yet, this is the attitude they face on a near-daily basis. When non-professionals do work for free, it undermines the very profession that freelancers have struggled to build. The job is so oft-misunderstood that translators frequently hear comments like, “Oh, my sister took some French in high school… I bet she’d be a great translator!” This is akin to telling your doctor, “I took a biology class once… I bet I’d be great at your job!” Yet, it is this unfortunate and inaccurate perception that translators constantly face — and wish to erase.
Many loyal and frequent “power” LinkedIn users are also wondering why they personally have to root out users who spam them as well as flag out irrelevant questions on the Answers board. All of these issues, including the translation issue, seem to hint that LinkedIn would rather have its users do the work for them for free. I think that LinkedIn users sincerely appreciate the time and effort that has been put in to develop this awesome social networking platform, but as LinkedIn becomes more profitable, more people will start questioning why LinkedIn doesn’t fund more of these initiatives themselves.
