Summary

The author's humor publication on Medium, "AAAAbsurdist, The," was suspended for violating platform rules, leading to its rebranding and relaunch as "Aaaaabsurdist, The."

Abstract

The author recounts their experience with Medium's Publication Beta, where they created several publications, including "AAAAbsurdist, The," which was suspended for allegedly violating Medium's rules. Despite the author's intention for the publication to be a humor-focused, absurdist outlet, the Medium AI misinterpreted the content as inappropriate. The suspension occurred after the author included a humorous reference to fellow writer Sean Kernan, with whom the author has a friendly relationship. After unsuccessful attempts to appeal the suspension, the author decided to remove Kernan's name and eventually deleted the publication, leading to the creation of a new one with more 'a's in the title and without Kernan's association. The author reflects on the challenges of content moderation by AI and the futility of fighting social media platforms' decisions, while also introducing the new publication and thanking contributors to the original one.

Opinions

The author believes that Medium's AI moderation system lacks the ability to recognize satire and humor, leading to an unfair suspension of their publication.
They express a sense of camaraderie and mutual understanding with Sean Kernan, emphasizing that the humor was never meant to be harmful or deceptive.
The author is critical of the broad and somewhat ambiguous nature of Medium's rules, which can be interpreted in a way that limits creative expression.
There is a clear frustration with the lack of human oversight in content moderation decisions made by social media platforms.
The author suggests that social media platforms prioritize maintaining a trouble-free environment over protecting individual expression, as evidenced by their decision to delete the publication rather than continue to challenge the ban.
Despite the setbacks, the author remains committed to the absurdist humor genre and is optimistic about the future of their new publication, "Aaaaabsurdist, The."

How Mentioning Sean Kernan Got My Publication Banned From Medium

Sorta

A few months ago I was chosen to be a tester for the Medium Publication Beta. It sounded like a great time to start a new pub or seven.

Alas, Medium Doomscroll Edition was not all it was cracked up to be. All my publications flopped. Not because of the Publication Beta, but because my ideas were bad and my stories sucked.

Except for one publication.

AAAAbsurdist, The

Normally there would be a link to it right here, but there isn’t. Because my pub was suspended.

What it looks like when your pub gets suspended

I wrote an email to Medium support inquiring about my pub being taken offline. I got a pre-fabricated response saying my publication violated the Medium rules.

I was blindsided. My pub was a humor publication specializing in absurdist humor. There were tons of off color remarks but none of them were directed at anyone or anything. It was good clean fun.

Then I saw it.

Don’t get it twisted. Sean Kernan and I are bros and have been bros for years. We seem like polar opposites but we’re not so different.

We’re around the same age. We both live in our fathers’ impossibly large shadows which we’re currently trying to break out of. We both have had our struggles with alcohol. And both of us quit our day jobs to become full time writers.

Underneath Sean’s nice guy posterior, there’s an edge. And underneath my asshole persona there’s a decent person.

If I didn’t like Sean Kernan, I wouldn’t poke fun at him. If I don’t like someone I won’t talk about them at all.

In fact, the reason I had listed him in my navigation page wasn’t to deceive anyone or trying to get him to write for my little hole-in-the-wall pub. It was a tribute. If you clicked on it you were greeted with:

Pfft, Do You Think Sean Kernan is Writing For This Brain Fart of a Bad Joke That is Aaaabsurdist, The

Here’s a picture of Sean Kernan at Glamour Shots

The entire thing was satire. But the Medium AI overlords wouldn’t know a joke if they woke up and found it growing on their cold steely robotic hands.

I first started poking fun at Sean Kernan on Quora years ago. In those days Kernan and I weren’t as familiar so I would ask for his permission.

Hogan: Hey man, mind if I mention you in this thing I’m writing? (attaches thing)

Sean: That’s great! Sure dude! Thanks for the kind words.

Hogan: Hey! I made this picture.

Sean: Haha! Awesome!

Hogan: Sup! Mind if I use this picture of the shrine I have of you in my closet for a story?

Sean: Lol. Cool man!

Hogan: Mind if I do this?

Sean: Can you make the cucumber any bigger?

Hogan: No.

Sean: Then it’s fine.

There’s no point in asking Sean Kernan if you can make fun of him. He’s got a great sense of humor and understands there’s no malice intended when I have a giggle at his expense.

Under the harassment section for the Medium rules it states:

Using Medium features like responses, private notes, mentions, follows, story requests, or writer requests in a way that attempts to or does annoy or harass someone, or to draw inorganic attention to your content on Medium.

Even though what I did isn’t specifically against the rules, it’s implied.

No problem. I took Sean Kernan’s name off the navigation bar and emailed support to reinstate my pub.

That was two months ago.

After being permanently banhammered off of Quora and having my Boneyard IP stolen from me, I still have PTSD from the moment I realized I was banned. It was traumatic.

Recently I forgot I’d cleared my cookies in my browser then went back to an open Medium tab. When I saw I had been logged out I nearly shit a brick. The same thing happened when I was banned from Quora.

Fighting for your right for free speech against social media platforms is futile. If you become more trouble than you’re worth, they ban you. If they can do it to a former president, they’ll do it to you.

Rather than cause a stink, I did something drastic.

I deleted my pub.

RIP AAAAbsurdist, The (Late 2020-Early 2021)

I’d like to thank Reuben Salsa, Pretheesh Presannan, Grin Spickett, Aimée Gramblin, and Ryan DeJonghe for making AAAAbsurdist, The one of the strangest publications to ever exist on Medium. It was a good run.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to introduce my newest publication:

Aaaaabsurdist, The

Now with 20% more ‘a’ and 100% less Sean Kernan.

It will showcase absurdist writers like Reuben Salsa, Pretheesh Presannan, Grin Spickett, Aimée Gramblin, and Ryan DeJonghe. And maybe you if you think you’re absurd enough.

Aaaaabsurdist, The

Absurdism at it’s most absurd. Am I a duck? That depends on how much money you got. I bet you don’t have enough. That’s…

medium.com

The moral of the story is, don’t put people who don’t write for your pub on the navigation. Even if that person is probably cool with it.

I Disagree with Everything This Site is For

Better Humans? More like Boring Humans.

medium.com