MEMBER OWNED AND OPERATED PUBLICATIONS ARE HERE TO STAY — EV WILLIAMS NEEDS US

A Spiritual Bad-Ass’ Assessment of Ev Williams’ Announcement

A win for all good souls incarnated in well-meaning writers and the publications they own

Yesterday, in response to Ev Williams’ announcement, Vishnu*s Virtues wrote in:

The company is going to be cutting resources and staff from the Medium-run publications but if you look at what Ev’s really saying, he’s giving up on publications altogether. He doesn’t think people are loyal to publications and publications no longer hold people’s trust.

My take on this update is that most publications are going to lose because of this update. The company doesn’t see the value of publications so they’re not going to give posts that show up in a publication any more weight than a post that doesn’t show up in a publication. Not only are Medium publications the loser but I believe ALL publications are going to be affected by this. There is little incentive for Medium to give publications any additional credibility or lift when it comes to sharing their content.

I disagree. (By the way, Vishnu, Rama is my higher power 😎)

Medium Needs the Member-owned and Operated Publications for the Section 230 Shield

In order to allow platforms not to be impossibly responsible for posts over which the platforms have no control, while at the same time encouraging the platforms to moderate content without becoming legally responsible therefor, Congress passed two laws, to wit: 1) The Communications Decency Act (the “CDA”) and 2) The Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998 (the “DMCA”).

The CDA provides in relevant part that:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service [(“ICS”)]shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

The term “interactive computer service” means any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.

The term “information content provider” means any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service.

Similarly, as summarized by United States Copyright Office, the DMCA states:

A party seeking the benefit of the limitations on liability in Title II must qualify as a “service provider.” …“service provider” is defined in section 512(k)(1)(A) as “an entity offering the transmission, routing, or providing of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the user’s choosing, without modification to the content of the material as sent or received.

Medium outright pushes responsibility for being the copyright police downhill onto publications. In order to keep their shields, ICS’s must act to shut down the accounts of infringers, which if one reads Medium’s detailed copyright policy, is one aspect of Medium’s policy that is clearly and appropriately designed by well-paid counsel to fit squarely within the DMCA shield.

Bottom line, as EvW is looking at his bottom line and cutting costs, and not looking to add the 1,000’s of staffers Medium would need to replace our volunteer workforce, member-owned and operated pubs form the backbone of Medium and we are here to stay.

I discuss publication owners’ hidden liability here and make suggestions on how you can protect yourself.

Other Noteworthy Sections of the Announcement

What pray tell is Amplify?

“One of our key innovations is what we now call Amplify, our program through which we offer editorial polish and a spotlight for writers who come in through the platform. This has worked really well.”

Of course, he leaves out any details. EvW continues that he will be:

Redirecting editorial resources to finding and supporting independent writers, who were publishing on Medium outside of our pubs. … As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I strongly believe that the editorial talent we have assembled here is a strategic asset that is in line with our business and strategy. For the foreseeable future, we will focus that talent on supporting independent voices on our platform. This means identifying writers — both already on Medium and not — and offering them deals, support, editing, and feedback to help them tell great stories and find their audience.

Deals? I know that must have a lot of writers who are here for MPP bucks waiting for details.

I wish now to point out how familiar this vision sounds. On March 18, 2020, Dr Mehmet Yildiz wrote:

I propose a publication which we can use to collaboratively grow and amplify our content using our collective resources in an innovative way.

The primary purpose of this publication is to publish types of articles which the authors believe ought to have been curated but for some reason were not distributed in topics. This can be an opportunity to showcase these valuable articles in a single source. This publication will serve as an alternative curation source for valuable, high impact, and quality content.

Dr. Yildiz outlined his strategy as follows:

Create a review team to improve quality of articles for extended distributions in various prominent science, technology, art, business, and other quality content forums and platforms.

Develop a supportive culture based on fusion principles, reciprocity, act of kindness, and mentoring. Share content with innovative ways in Medium ecosystem.

Sounds like EvW borrowed his idea from Dr. Yildiz. It’s ok — Mehmet is not about credit.

Sidebar

Actually, based upon what I just read in The Verge, perhaps EvW’s original Amplify has not worked well and he has recently recast it to mirror Mehmet’s vision. It sounds like Amplify as originally intended was nothing more than another corruption of capitalism by the 1%’s and their wannabe’s.

Three weeks ago I read a wonderfully self-aware assessment of one’s past and how to learn from it by life-coach Krista Mollion.

This is one of the best pieces I have ever read on Medium — that the piece has 4 fans, only one of which is a paying member (Jack Road — who happens to be one of my favorite new writers on Medium and whom I featured along with other writers deserving credit for their stories), speaks volumes about what is not right with Medium).

Most germane to my analysis today and the post in The Verge, Krista confesses and regrets:

Sometimes you needed to lay off people to make more profits. That was just the reality in my world. This is no surprise since my role models used their power and influence towards profits and disregarded human factors. After all, “business is business” was the golden rule in my shallow mind. Either keep up or get out. I was a hard-ass when it came to work and ambition.

To which I responded:

The 1%’s have perverted capitalism, and worse they quote Adam Smith out of context. Smith’s Wealth of Nations posited that free-markets would lead to wealth fairly distributed among the citizens based on their contribution. We do not have free markets. We have markets twisted by laws written by lobbyists for large corporations and too-wealthy-individuals. Capitalism has been perverted into a Darwinian game of survival at the top of the food chain at the expense of others. As spiritual beings, humans are not supposed to act like animals. … Our rigged system of capitalism is actually pathologically narcissistic as one succeeds not based upon their intelligence but upon their capacity to manipulate and take advantage of other people.

Back to Our Feature

When maliciously attacked, Mehmet responds with virtuous grace.

I take a different approach. March 19, 2020, is the shared birthday of my bad-ass soul awakening and Illumination — a bad-ass publication.

3/19/20 wailing shattering space-time Synchronizes births Illuminating sunrise Marcus wakes from Greg’s shadow

I was born into this lifecycle as Gregory Maidman. I still am Greg. I am also Marcus — my soul’s universal name — we are one and the same. “Marcus … is a traditionally masculine name with Gaelic and Latin roots. It can mean “polite,” “shining,” and/or “hammer,” a somewhat violent reference that makes sense with Marcus’ overlap root word with the Roman god of war, Mars.”

It totally fits this spiritual bad-ass. My brand of spirituality believes that karma demands that I hold bad-actors accountable.

Yet, Ms. Schlessinger continues her attack in this short form post to her profile.

That post is self-serving horse hockey. When I operated my family’s real estate business, we had a phrase for the reliability of the output from our very fancy real-estate management and accounting software — “garbage in, garbage out.” I suggest Ms. Schlessinger post screenshots of her email exchanges with Medium so that readers can assess the import of the exchange. Moreover, I know for a fact that Medium will not provide a response that amounts to legal advice. Which makes sense, particularly to people who do not understand anything about law. Libel is not distinct from defamation — it is a subset of defamation. So, saying one made written statements does not mean one has not defamed. Moreover, Ms. Schlessinger did not merely question Dr. Yildiz’s qualifications. She outright accused him of being a fraud in her Facebook post. That is libel because as established by Dr. Yildiz’s response, the accusation is false. I wonder what prompted Ms. Schlessinger to attack in the first place. I suspect she is being manipulated by people jealous of Illumination’s success. She is repeating Jonathan Greene’s playbook. Attack and then hide by blocking us from seeing her content. I believe it is cowardice to post the short form response, tag Illumination and Dr. Yildiz as the reader-interests, and then block all of us who may wish to respond therein.

More regarding the announcement

Vishnu also wrote: “I believe there are two kinds of publications that are going to succeed. One, publications that are based on community and relationships, like Illumination, will succeed. People come to these publications to find new writers, interesting points of view and to support each other.

Also, I believe that niche publications that focus strongly on one topic will succeed. Publications that focus only on writing, only on relationships, only on spirituality, only on poetry will succeed.”

𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘊.’s publication Know Thyself, Heal Thyself fits both prongs of Vishnu’s description to a tee. When I became I writer there in November, I believe it had over 500 readers. Today I noticed it now has over 2,500. When it suffered the writer-deletion-incident the other week, Diana responded by forming a Slack space for the pub — the community involvement therein is inspiring.

The counterproductive competition between so many member-owned pubs drives me batty. This needs to stop. I posted this in a story several weeks ago.

I am presently on staff with these Truly Spiritual Publications (“TSP”) here on Medium:

Know Thyself Heal Thyself, A few of Illumination’s publications as an editor (Illumination, Illumination’s Mirror, and Synergy), Grab a Slice, Queen’s Children, Be Yourself and ChannSpirations and Coincidences, which I own.

I say this only because I bemoan the lack of cross-pollination between TSP’s and believe I may have a solution.

My and my coeditors’ (Anthi Psomiadou and 𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘊. (who also owns Know Thyself Heal Thyself)) pub, ChannSpirations and Coincidences, exists, as described in this linked story, to celebrate synchronicities and the every-person-portal.

I read stories every day across the TSP’s that either could have been published in C&C because they directly discuss synchronicities or about which the writer could pen a separate story discussing the synchronicities that inspired or birthed their story.

I offer every one of you a column in C&C, in which you can discuss any serendipitous aspect of however many stories you want to highlight in a given column, which you may write and submit at whatever regular or irregular interval suits you.

In this manner, you can showcase your writers and your pubs and readers can have the benefit of a spiritual clearinghouse that fits squarely within Medium’s rules on duplicate content. I look forward to your thoughts.

The response was less than overwhelming.

Perhaps the spirit of cooperation will change. This is how I view Medium:

Another fine writer, Noorain Hassan, BMS, posed this question yesterday. Holly Kellums provides the answer by example. Holly often self publishes and waits to be curated — her stories are getting noticed and requested by various pubs across the diaspora. This brilliant story of hers, which in Holly’s style, responds to injustice without necessarily naming the perpetrator, was picked up by Curious:

This brave story was picked up by a niche pub, Wholeistique:

This story from January is very timely today and I breathe new life into it now.

Thank you for spending this time with me.

In Rama I create,

Marcus