Why and How to REPORT or BLOCK Someone on LinkedIn

This tutorial will explain WHY and HOW to report or block someone on LinkedIn.

Note that you do NOT need to be connected to someone to report or block them.

There are many other options to curate your LinkedIn community, including Unfollowing, Muting, and unlinking from people which I cover in other posts. Blocking and Reporting helps LinkedIn identify and remove people who are misusing the platform and/or harassing you or others.

Why report or block someone on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is an excellent tool to build and nurture your professional network, to establish your expertise and to find new prospects. It is also a great way for people to find you. But sometimes, people use this tool for un-professional or even dangerous purposes.

In an effort to protect the platform and it’s users, LinkedIn has committed to removing people and content that ‘personally attacks, intimidates, shames, bullies, or disparages LinkedIn members, or is otherwise abusive or uncivil.’

The LinkedIn terms and policies include, “do not reveal others’ personal or sensitive information (for example, doxing), or incite others to do the same. Do not engage in sexual innuendos or unwanted advances. We don’t allow unwanted expressions of attraction, desire, requests for romantic relationship, marriage proposals, sexual advances or innuendo, or lewd remarks.”

Violating their User Agreement and Professional Community Policies can result in action against an account, or content, or access to certain features.

If you see this, or worse, are a victim of this type of activity, you have the ability to report and/or block the person doing this.

How is this different from unfollowing or unlinking from a connection on LinkedIn?

If you just don’t want to see someone’s content in your stream, you can achieve this by unfollowing or unlinking from them. Blocking someone on LinkedIn provides an additional level of protection and allows you to prevent someone from seeing your content.

Here are some reasons you may choose to block someone:

Protecting Your Privacy and Security

• Blocking prevents the blocked individual from viewing your profile, posts, articles, and activity.
• It stops them from being able to message you directly.
• Removes them from your connections and prevents re-connection unless you unblock them.

Avoiding Unwanted Interactions

• If someone is harassing, spamming, or contacting you in an unprofessional way, blocking cuts off communication.
• Useful for handling inappropriate comments or persistent unwanted networking requests.

Helps Manage Professional Boundaries

• You may not want certain people (competitors, former employers, etc.) to monitor your updates, network, or business activities.
• It allows you to control who has visibility into your career changes, job searches, or client announcements.

Removing Negative Influence

• If a user’s posts, tone, or engagement style are disruptive or harmful, blocking ensures they no longer appear in your feed.
• This can help maintain a healthier, more productive LinkedIn experience.

Peace of Mind

• For some users, simply knowing that someone no longer has access to their profile is reassuring.

How to report or block someone on LinkedIn

Log into your account and go to the person’s profile.

To do this, type the person’s name into the search bar, at the top of your page (in both desktop and mobile modes).

Or, if you see their content in your news stream and feel that it is offensive or abusive, click on their name, which will take you to their profile.

Under their name, there will be a button that says ‘MORE’ – click on that and you will see a drop down menu.

(See the image at the top of this post).

Choose ‘REPORT/BLOCK’

What happens when you report/block someone on LinkedIn

Once you click on that option, you will see a pop-up with the following options:

On this menu, you may choose to BLOCK the person.

This will completely sever your digital connection. The blocked person cannot see your profile, posts, updates, or message you. They are also removed as a connection (if you were connected).

Blocking someone is best for:

Harassment
Stalking
Persistent, unwanted contact

You may choose to REPORT the person.

Note that this option is the one to report the profile, NOT just a specific post. See below for how to report a specific post.

LinkedIn does not notify the person that they’ve been blocked. However, they may realize it if they search for your profile and can no longer access it.

Reporting someone is best for:

Unprofessional or fraud-related posts
Exceptionally incendiary posts
Persistent posting of sexual or suggestive content

This is also the option to choose to let LinkedIn know that the person is deceased.

You may choose to report a profile element.

Here, they will ask you about the content and which policy would apply (scam, harassment, sexual content, etc).

Reporting a profile element is best for:

Someone claiming a degree, work experience or credential they are not legitimately entitled to
Someone claiming to work for your company, but they do not, or no longer do
Someone using a false name or other misrepresentation

You can also use this option to report someone as deceased.

Please be careful with this tool

Yes, you CAN block and report people but please consider other options first. And keep in mind, this action may trigger a review and if the profile you have reported is not, in fact doing anything that is against the terms of service or inappropriate, they may review YOUR profile as well. This is not a tool to be used lightly, and certainly not vindictively!

How to report a specific post on LinkedIn

Every post has a series of three dots to the right of it – click on those dots to see a drop down menu, specific to that content.

Here, you can choose to report the specific post. This will take you to a drop down menu with the option to give feedback or tell they how it goes against their policies.

Other options

And as I said above, for more minor infractions, please consider other options like removing the connection or unfollowing, etc. Below are a series of posts explaining how and why to use those options.