avatarJennifer Geer

Summary

A Medium writer is calling attention to a plagiarist on the platform who is copying articles from top writers and other blogs, urging Medium to enforce stricter measures against such activity.

Abstract

The new Medium CEO, Tony Stubblebine, has emphasized the need for higher quality content on the platform. However, a serious issue has arisen as a plagiarist is actively copying and pasting articles from respected Medium writers like Abena Talks and other bloggers. Despite reports, Medium has not taken action against the offending account, which continues to repost content verbatim, including images. This has led to frustration within the Medium community, with calls for the platform to crack down on plagiarists to maintain and improve the quality of writing. The lack of immediate response from Medium moderators has highlighted a gap in their content policing efforts, despite the CEO's commitment to raising the bar for content quality.

Opinions

  • The plagiarist's actions are undermining Medium's efforts to improve content quality.
  • Medium's inaction on reported plagiarism is disappointing and demotivating for original content creators.
  • There is a call for Medium to prioritize dealing with plagiarists as part of their commitment to elevating the platform's content standards.
  • The ease of finding plagiarized content suggests that Medium's current moderation system is insufficient.
  • The writer expresses a sense of urgency and frustration regarding Medium's response to plagiarism, indicating a need for a more robust and responsive moderation process.
  • The writer suggests that removing plagiarized content and reporting offending accounts should be a swift and decisive action by Medium.
  • The update indicating the plagiarist's account removal after public outcry implies that community action can lead to results, but also questions why the issue wasn't addressed sooner by Medium's own processes.

A Medium Writer Is Blatantly Plagiarizing Articles from Top Writers and Other Blogs

It’s time for Medium to crack down on plagiarists

Image by motorolka/Depositphotos.com

New Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine has said in numerous interviews and comments he wants the quality of writing on Medium to improve. In one interview quoted here by Kristina God, Tony said, “the bar for what we serve to subscribers needs to go up. The reward for meeting that bar will be higher but it will require more work.”

The only work done by a plagiarist is cut and paste, and yet, here they are, running rampant on Medium.

I read an article this morning from top writer Abena Talks:

Abena details how an account on Medium is copying her work, word for word. Abena said she noticed in the past an article of hers stolen by this person.

Abena reported it to Medium, but nothing happened. The article is still there at the time I write this.

And worse, when Abena woke up this morning, she discovered the plagiarist had struck again.

“This kind of thing makes me want to quit,” she said.

I did a quick Google search and easily found this plagiarist has been busy. Aside from Abena, the account has stolen writing from other bloggers, including thismamablogs.com, where a word-for-word replica of her article titled, “13 Real Ways to Make Money on Facebook in 2022” is currently sitting on Medium.

Medium, where are you?

It took me under 10 minutes of research to find out this writer is a plagiarist. Where are the Medium moderators to shut this account down?

As an editor for the Illumination publications, I have some experience dealing with plagiarists. We do our best never to publish plagiarized articles. But if it happens, which it sometimes does, we remove the articles as soon as possible and report the account to Medium.

However, this writer hasn’t published in Illumination, so there isn’t anything I can do other than report the offending articles to Medium.

This person has unabashedly pinned to the top of their profile one of the articles they have swiped from Abena. It’s not just a cut-and-paste job, they even used the same image.

Come on Medium, where are you on this? If we’re “raising the bar for quality,” at Medium, shouldn’t we start with plagiarism?

Update: It works to make some noise. As of Friday, October 28, 3 PM central time, the account is gone. This is what you see now if you search the account:

screenshot by author

Want to unlock unlimited stories like this one? Consider becoming a Medium member for $5 per month. If you sign up with my referral link, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Medium
Writing
Plagiarism
Opinion
Illumination
Recommended from ReadMedium