Knee-Capped By The Censors

Is honesty a bad policy?

I don’t want to compare Big Tech bosses to dictators, or companies like Twitter or Medium to dictatorships.

But one can’t help getting a bit paranoid sometimes.

I had a good run of ascending stats, views and reads, and a big improvement on read ratio over the last couple of months. I’ve been averaging writing a piece a day, gaining new followers, and getting a lot of support and positive feedback from my readers.

But then I recently wrote this piece:

It outlines my disappointment in learning that my recent satire that picked up 700 internal views and 350 internal reads in two days amounted to $Zero dollars and $Zilch cents, as they were all deemed nonmember reads.

This, of course, is in light of so many writers throwing public parties about getting recently boosted by Coach Tony’s band of 12 secret editors.

So I did what any writer might venture to do: I wrote about it.

Now, before I wrote this piece, I was averaging about 100 views and 35 reads per piece for my last 25 pieces of writing. This was an improvement from the previous month.

As I’m not in the business of selling dreams or posturing as a self-help guru, these are respectable stats for me. I write poetry and satire. So I will count my small victories, as I never get big victories.

But ever since I wrote the piece in question, my stats have taken a serious nose dive to a depressing 25 views and 9 reads per piece. How do I explain the drop from 100 views to 25 views?

And it isn’t that the quality of my writing has changed.

So why wouldn’t I get paranoid that I got under the skin of somebody important, and that I am being muted on everyone’s home feeds with the exception of my subscribers?

Unless the algorithm has punitive powers I don’t know about?

It can’t be because I’ve written about Medium, as I’ve been writing about Medium since the day I joined.

I want to believe that Medium is a platform for free and fearless self-expression, where no topic is too controversial, as long as the basic guidelines of respect and common decency are adhered to.

Am I wrong to expect this?

There is nothing like censorship and punishment to kill the momentum of having fun writing on Medium and writing your best stuff.

Of course, I can’t prove anything, and I hope to hell I am wrong, but the sudden plunge in falling stats is disturbing.

Anyone else ever experience a mysterious plunge in stats after daring to be constructively critical of Medium?

© Carlo Zeno 2023

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Thanks for reading, and thank you to Jason Provencio for considering this piece for his pub. For two recent relatively neglected pieces, check out the below 👇