Who am I on LinkedIn?

I woke up today morning to an interesting piece of news from Endpoints Pharma watchdog calls out AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline for breaches on online conduct – Endpoints News (endpts.com)

UK regulator PMCPA (Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority) identified five life sciences firms' promotions in breach of ABPI code (Britannia, AstraZeneca, Allergan, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi named in advertisements for breaches of the ABPI Code (pmcpa.org.uk))

For Allergan, it was found in breach of the rules because its employees had liked or commented on a LinkedIn post created by a GP/ CEO of a medical aesthetics clinic. The complainant alleged that liking and commenting on the post amounted to unlawful promotion (AUTH/3431/11/20 - Complainant v Allergan (pmcpa.org.uk))

This brings me to the crux of this article.

Who am I on LinkedIn?

Am I Sandeep Upadhyay, a private person on a professional social platform for professional networking? Or am I Sandeep Upadhyay, an employee of my current employer and my current employer could be held liable for my activities on the platform.

Could the converse be true as well? Could I be held liable or associated with activities that my current employer has on LinkedIn.

This is a hard question to answer. Most of us assume that we are on LinkedIn in a personal capacity and our actions on LinkedIn (or other social platforms) are personal expressions.

However, the actions of PMCPA in this case are setting a precedent that the employer is liable for an employee's activities on LinkedIn. Should this precedent hold, there are some critical questions that it raises

1. Should employers formalize a code of conduct for employees using LinkedIn in a personal capacity to avoid liability? and/ or
2. Should employees not list their employers on LinkedIn? and/ or
3. Should employers track employee's LinkedIn activity or require employees to get any content they want to publish to be pre-approved before it is published? and/ or
4. Should employees get approval from their employers on what posts they can like or comment?

At least on LinkedIn, there has been a convergence of our personal and professional identities. Yes, our activities are personal, but they are driven towards the professional space.

Whatever be the answer to the questions above, I believe that these recent events will trigger some level of unbundling of our personal and professional identities on LinkedIn (and other platforms).

What are your thoughts on this development?