You Don't Own Your Online Presence
I woke up this morning to discover that my LinkedIn profile - created 10 years ago, containing more than a thousand connections, and serving as the foundation of my professional digital identity - had vanished. Not hacked. No warning, no explanation. Just gone, as if it had never existed.
I have my password and 2FA, but I cannot get there, because my page doesn't exist any more.
In a single moment it reminded me of a harsh truth that millions of professionals refuse to acknowledge: You don't own your online presence. You rent it.
The Illusion of Digital Ownership
We speak about our social media profiles with possessive language. "My LinkedIn," "my Twitter," "my Instagram." We invest countless hours crafting our digital personas, building networks, and creating content. We treat our profiles as extensions of ourselves. This linguistic habit reveals how completely we've bought into the illusion of ownership.
But legally and practically, these profiles aren't ours. They're database entries on someone else's server, governed by someone else. When you create a LinkedIn profile, you're signing a rental agreement and can be evicted without notice, explanation, or recourse.
The terms are buried in legal documents that are thousands of words long, but the reality is simple: platforms own your data, your connections, your content, and your access. You're granted a revocable license to use their service, nothing more.
The Anatomy of Platform Dependency
My LinkedIn disappearance exposed the depth of my problem. This particular loss stung more than it might have otherwise - it was my only decade-old account, I lost my old X two years ago. When you've already lost pieces of your online presence to circumstances beyond your control, losing what feels like your sole anchor point hits differently
My achievements, work history, and work connections were all centralized in one place that I didn't control. I had started building my own website and developing other accounts a year ago, after I lost my old Twitter, but ten years of professional networking was concentrated on LinkedIn.
Those 1,000+ "connections" were database entries accessible only through LinkedIn's proprietary interface. Years of carefully cultivated professional relationships were suddenly inaccessible because the platform decided to remove my page.
In an era where our online presence serves as both portfolio and proof of professional evolution, losing a decade-old account means losing the documented journey of career growth, industry engagement, and thought development. The newer accounts I maintain - my website, my new X account - lack this historical depth.
The Asymmetry of Power
The relationship between users and platforms is fundamentally asymmetric. We provide the content, the data, the engagement, that make these platforms valuable. In return, we get access to tools and audiences. But the power dynamic is unequal.
Platforms can:
- Change their algorithms without warning, making your content invisible
- Modify terms of service that you must accept or lose access
- Suspend or delete accounts based on automated systems with no human review
- Use your data and content to train AI models or for other commercial purposes
- Sell your information to third parties within the bounds of their privacy policies
- Shut down entirely
Users can:
- Accept these terms or leave
- Create content that the platform may or may not show to others
- Build networks that exist only within the platform's ecosystem
- Hope that their years of investment won't disappear overnight
This isn't a fair exchange, but this is how it works.
Platform dependency creates risks.
Businesses invest heavily in social media as primary marketing channels. Freelancers use LinkedIn for lead generation. Personal brands exist entirely within platform ecosystems. When platforms change algorithms, suspend accounts, or shut down, the impact is devastating. Most have no backup plan.
Beyond Platform Dependency
However, platforms do provide genuine value for networking, discovery, and audience building. The solution is to treat them as tools not foundations.
Own Your Infrastructure: Maintain a personal website with your own domain. Use it as the canonical source for your professional information, portfolio, and contact details.
Diversify Your Presence: Don't build your entire professional identity on a single platform. Maintain profiles across multiple platforms, and maintain direct relationships outside of platform boundaries.
Control Your Content: Publish on your own site first, then distribute to social platforms. Keep archives of your content, and maintain ownership of your intellectual property.
Build Direct Relationships: The most valuable professional relationships shouldn't depend on intermediaries.
Expect Impermanence: Treat social media presence as temporary and supplementary rather than permanent and foundational. Platforms rise and fall, algorithms change, and accounts disappear.
The Broader Implications
Platform control of profiles represents an issue about digital rights, platform power, and the fragility of our online identities.
A few platforms control professional and social connection infrastructure. This concentration creates problems beyond individual inconvenience:
- Professional gatekeeping: Platforms control who gets visibility and access to opportunities
- Information control: Algorithms determine what professionals see in their feeds
- Economic dependency: Business models rely on platform access that can disappear instantly
- Network fragmentation: Professional relationships get locked in platform silos
The internet was designed to be decentralized, but our behavior has re-centralized it around a few dominant platforms. Recognizing this reality is the first step toward building a more resilient digital presence.
The goal isn't to predict which platforms will disappear or when algorithms will change - it's to build a professional and personal digital presence that can survive these inevitable disruptions.
My LinkedIn account might return, or it might not. But this experience has reminded me one more time: in the digital world, nothing lasts forever, but your own infrastructure puts you in the driver's seat.
The platforms we use today won't last forever. But if we're smart about how we build our digital presence, we can manage the risks.
Update (July 25, 2025): My LinkedIn account has been restored. This doesn’t change the main idea about the importance of maintaining some independence from platforms.
Also published on: Medium