In its latest move to make the site less like a stream of strangers and more like a platform for talking to friends, LinkedIn is testing a new tab that removes all but the people you actually connected with or followed.
What the Network Tab Does
LinkedIn’s Chief Product Officer, Hari Srinivasan, announced the trial last Friday, announcing a Network tab as an alternative to the main feed. Rather than the random assortment of posts from creators, recommended accounts, and whatever else the algorithm predicts you may like, the Network tab only displays posts from your direct connections and the people you follow:
Srinivasan framed the change around a very simple idea: that people want to be in touch in a more real way, with people they actually know. ‘We all want more real connection with real people’ he said, ‘and I’d like to think that this will play a little part in rebuilding that world. ‘ It was one small design change with a reasonably lofty goal.
Why LinkedIn Is Pushing This Now
This test isn’t a standalone issue. Much of the past year, LinkedIn has been trying to fix two separate issues that have eroded the main feed’s sense of credibility.
First, engagement pods, private groups where people plan in advance to like, comment on, and reshare each other’s posts to artificially inflate engagement and manipulate LinkedIn’s algorithm into promoting the content to a wider audience. LinkedIn’s Professional Community Policies explicitly ban members from agreeing in advance to boost each other’s content this way. The company has been intensifying its crackdown, with VP of Product Management Gyanda Sachdeva outlining its new efforts to identify pod activity (and the browser extensions and automation techniques that help it) earlier this year.
The second challenge is AI generated content pouring into people’s feeds (some call it AI slop). It led to LinkedIn launching a feature where you could report AI created posts directly. Following complaints that lazily written, bot generated content was crowding out the content users actually wanted to see.
Combine those two issues and an underlying pattern emerges. A coordinated pod artificially boosting a meme from an unfamiliar account is no different from an AI tool generating a low-effort post. Both are driven by some unknown or untrusted contributor showing up in your feed because the algorithm decided it was worth surfacing.
LinkedIn Has Tried This Before
Feed experiments have been around for a while now and their recent performance has not been very successful.
Last year, the company rolled out several alternative feed formats in the hope of boosting total app engagement. The company also launched a test in June for topic based suggested feeds, which was designed to introduce users to hot discussion topics grouped together by just the topic. Neither experiment expanded into a permanent feature, indicating an ongoing effort to find a balanced way to empower users with the ability to personalize their feed without over splintering to the point of incoherence.
That history is worth bearing in mind here. A simple feed of known connections only, instead of a topic-based suggestion engine, and it corresponds to something that users already grasp instinctively: I want to see what other people I know are posting. Whether that is enough to make the Network tab ‘bite’ where the previous tests failed is still an open question.
What This Means for Everyday Users and Marketers
To the average user, an advantage of the Network tab seems fairly straightforward. It gives a solution for the user who keeps noticing ways to dial things back to something closer to a contact list of updates. For marketers, creators, or anyone else trying to build a fanbase on LinkedIn, the equation looks a little different. An entirely connection-based feed would benefit those who have already established a true audience of followers and connections, since these are the only accounts shown there. It does nothing to help reach this audience through algorithmic discovery a type of reach that you can get when an algorithm pushes a post out to people who didn’t already follow the poster. If the Network tab becomes popular, growing an audience the old-fashioned way, one genuine follow or connection at a time, becomes more valuable than chasing viral reach through the main feed.
It is also worth noting that this is a test, not a launch. LinkedIn hasn’t announced the size of the test group, the length of the test period, or the conditions under, which the Network tab will be released to all users. As evidenced by the previous two feed tests, there is no certainty of a full rollout.
The Bigger Trend Behind the Test
Stepping back, the test is part of a larger shift taking place across social media more broadly, and not solely on LinkedIn. For the past several years, social media users across most large platforms have been harboring a common complaint about their feeds being flooded by content from sources they don’t know personally, like recommended posts, sponsored content, and AI generated content. Multiple platforms introduced a variant of a chronological, or connections-only feed right alongside an algorithm-driven feed to keep users happy.
LinkedIn’s version of that response is shaped by what sets the platform apart from other social networks, like Instagram or X. For a long time now, the real value of a service like LinkedIn has been in the relationships you form and maintain with real people, such as professionals colleagues clients, and managers, not in mindless consumption of content. A feed that only shows those direct connections is arguably closer to what LinkedIn was originally built to be than the algorithmically curated version most users see today.
If that is even what people want on a normal day still needs to be proven. Many people turn to LinkedIn to find new voices and news and content from people outside of their network. A Network tab does not replace that experience, it just gives an alternative.
For now, the most cautious interpretation of the Network tab is that it’s merely the latest ploy by LinkedIn to address a common complaint: that the feed is less relevant than it once was. Whether this particular fix earns a permanent spot next to the main feed will depend on something LinkedIn’s past two tests never managed: users choosing to keep coming back to it once the novelty wears off.
FAQs
Q 1: What is LinkedIn’s new Network tab?
It is a test function that displays a feed containing only updates from your direct connections and the accounts you are following, rather than the main feed that uses an algorithm.
Q 2: Who announced the Network tab test?
This trial was announced by LinkedIn’s Chief Product Officer Hari Srinivasan on a post last Friday.
Q 3: Is the Network tab available to everyone?
No. It is still an experimental feature and LinkedIn has not confirmed a timeline or criteria for a wider rollout.
Q 4: Why is LinkedIn testing this now?
The experiment is in line with the updated actions of LinkedIn to counter the formation of engagement pods and the spread of AI generated content on people’s feeds, which has led to diminished trust in the main feed for many users.
Q 5: What are engagement pods?
Engagement pods are secret groups that coordinately like, comment on, and reshare each other’s posts to inflate visibility, and this is against LinkedIn’s Professional Community Policies.
Q 6: Has LinkedIn tested alternative feeds before?
Yes. Last year, LinkedIn experimented with different alternative feed formats, and in June offered topic based suggested feeds. Though, both experiments remained in the testing phase.
Q 7: How does this affect marketers and creators?
A connections only feed favors accounts that have already built a real following, since only existing connections and followers will see posts there, rather than accounts relying on algorithmic reach to new audiences.
Q 8: Does the Network tab replace the main LinkedIn feed?
No. It is meant to be a secondary tab sitting on the side of the normal feed, giving users the choice between the two rather than replacing the existing experience.
Q 9: Will the order of posts in the Network tab still be algorithmic?
LinkedIn has not provided any specifics as to how posts are arranged within the Network tab, but has said that the available accounts within the tab are capped at direct connections and followers.
Q 10: Does this address the AI generated content problem on LinkedIn?
Indirectly. A feed limited to known connections reduces the chance of encountering AI generated posts from unfamiliar accounts, though LinkedIn has also introduced a separate reporting tool specifically for flagging AI generated content.
