Lost 100+ Medium Followers in a Blink and Freaking Out?

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ot writer revealed several bot accounts posting the same article, using the same headline. It was copied, word to word. I was flabbergasted as to how secure our writing is on Medium? What if it gets poached outside without our knowledge.</p><p id="4f4f">I even wrote an <a href="https://readmedium.com/partly-the-reason-why-your-reader-stats-are-dropping-holy-cr-p-cf9ec63123c0">article</a> about this and shared it with my writing community. Some writers saw their best stories published on Medium under a different name. Shockingly they also discovered several of their top-performing stories posted on external sites without their permission. Some had a link to the author’s Medium account, and some did not.</p><p id="a763">Many writers reported these incidents, and Medium had responded they would take action soon. Fair enough.</p><p id="cc2e">Medium is now delivering on its promise to remove spam accounts on Medium starting 17.06.2021. The good news is, now our followers would be authentic followers, says Medium. Medium also assured that this action would not affect our story’s distribution or earnings in any way. This spam account removal will happen every day to keep the platform clean. Wow!</p><p id="b6f7">Appreciate the Medium staff for this genuine and supportive gesture toward writers. We can now be rest assured our writing is in safe hands. Followers will come, so writers are in general happy about this spam account busting Medium is doing. Better to have 100 engaged followers instead of thousands of spammy bots who can only do more harm to our writing.</p><p id="c4dc">A huge thank you to the Medium Staff for tackling this situation quickly and efficiently. Maybe an email to writers about the coming of spam and bot exterminators would have been nice, opined some writers. Surely it would have spared some anxiety and self-doubt for us, writers. Right?</p><p id="2bc8">Read similar content from the author:</p><div id="8fea" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/mediums-blogroll-grow-you

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Hey, it’s all good. Here’s why…

Yesterday (17.06.2021), I noticed I’d lost a bunch of followers in a matter of hours. Panic-stricken, I checked and re-checked if any of my stories turned offensive to someone or my response to another writer’s story backfired? Nothing of that sort.

Last week I had crossed 500 followers and celebrated it with a little happy dance. And now, to see the count dropping below 500, I felt terrible. Maybe I should publish more often? Or should I change my strategy? Change my niche? Ugh!

On the Medium-related Facebook groups I follow, I saw posts popping up about lost followers. Some had lost thousands of followers, and many top writers lost around 10k - 15k followers was the buzz.

Many, including me, guessed that it could be a Medium algorithm change, and I would check back tomorrow, and all should be fine. But soon, somebody linked to this post about Medium’s drive to remove spammy bot accounts that had infiltrated Medium for at least a year now.

Why Now and What Next?

Last year, I accidentally discovered several plagiarised articles from other websites onto Medium by several faceless writers. Those accounts looked suspicious with no image and nothing in the “About” section.

A search on the title of an article from a random bot writer revealed several bot accounts posting the same article, using the same headline. It was copied, word to word. I was flabbergasted as to how secure our writing is on Medium? What if it gets poached outside without our knowledge.

I even wrote an article about this and shared it with my writing community. Some writers saw their best stories published on Medium under a different name. Shockingly they also discovered several of their top-performing stories posted on external sites without their permission. Some had a link to the author’s Medium account, and some did not.

Many writers reported these incidents, and Medium had responded they would take action soon. Fair enough.

Medium is now delivering on its promise to remove spam accounts on Medium starting 17.06.2021. The good news is, now our followers would be authentic followers, says Medium. Medium also assured that this action would not affect our story’s distribution or earnings in any way. This spam account removal will happen every day to keep the platform clean. Wow!

Appreciate the Medium staff for this genuine and supportive gesture toward writers. We can now be rest assured our writing is in safe hands. Followers will come, so writers are in general happy about this spam account busting Medium is doing. Better to have 100 engaged followers instead of thousands of spammy bots who can only do more harm to our writing.

A huge thank you to the Medium Staff for tackling this situation quickly and efficiently. Maybe an email to writers about the coming of spam and bot exterminators would have been nice, opined some writers. Surely it would have spared some anxiety and self-doubt for us, writers. Right?

Read similar content from the author:

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