Summary

The article investigates the prevalence of bots on Medium, particularly focusing on the suspicious activity of a user named Diana Meresc, and reveals the existence of automated tools like the Medium Auto Follow Bot Chrome Extension and MediumBot on GitHub that manipulate engagement and follower counts.

Abstract

The author of the article has conducted a thorough investigation into the use of bots on the Medium platform, noting strange activities such as random highlighting, repetitive comments, and a lack of interaction from certain accounts. These observations led to the discovery of a Medium Auto Follow Bot Chrome Extension, which claims to increase followers and readership without risk of suspension from Medium. The article also uncovers a Python-based bot called MediumBot on GitHub, which automates liking, commenting, and following behaviors based on pre-configured parameters. The findings raise concerns about the authenticity of engagement on Medium, with potential implications for the integrity of the platform. The author suggests that users report suspicious activity to Medium Support and provides instructions on how to report users who may be employing these bots. The article speculates on the authenticity of Diana Meresc's account, questioning whether it is being operated by a bot due to a sudden surge in activity and engagement.

Opinions

The author expresses skepticism about the authenticity of Diana Meresc's account, suggesting it may be a bot.
There is a clear concern about the impact of bots on Medium, potentially deceiving writers about the true level of engagement with their content.
The author is wary of the risks associated with using bots, such as being banned or suspended from Medium, despite claims that the Medium Auto Follow Bot is undetectable.
The discovery of bots like MediumBot on GitHub is presented as an alarming revelation that explains the repetitive and inauthentic interactions on Medium.
The article encourages a proactive approach by users to help maintain the platform's integrity by reporting suspected bot activity.
There is an implicit call to action for readers to become paying Medium members, which also benefits the author financially.

Medium | Bots

Medium Bots — is Diana Meresc Genuine? The Shocking Truth

I’ve been digging into bots on Medium, see what I’ve found it’s eye-opening.

I noticed some strange activity by Diana Meresc and I’m not the only one.

Have you seen any of this activity on your account?

Random highlighting the minute you publish something?
Comments that are exactly the same on different articles?
No replies to your comments?

Then I read this article from Gustave Deresse who’d spotted the same things.

So I did a little googling.

But not for Diane, for bots.

And do you know what I found?

Medium Auto Follow Bot Chrome Extension

Yup, an extension that automatically follows and unfollows people on your behalf!

From their advertising spiel this is what they claim:

Will this bot actual grow your followers and will the new followers actually read your posts?
————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Yes! Our users have reported both an increase in followers *and* an increase in readership after using this bot.

Are you worried about being banned or suspended from Medium.com for using this bot?  
———————————————————————————————————————————————
Don’t be! Since this is a Chrome extension rather than an app, Medium.com is unable to differentiate between your clicks and the bot’s since they share the same browser fingerprint.  To date, we’ve yet to have a *single* user report being suspended by Medium.com while using this bot.

Yikes! Not sure I’d risk that, thank you.

But it gets worse.

I little more digging and I found this on GitHub!!!!!

MediumBot

You need to be a python expert to get this one up and running but I think it’s what Diane Meresc and other weird faceless accounts are using…

From the installation details:

.... the bot will start visiting articles based on your tags and start liking and commenting articles or following and unfollowing users increase your visibility on Medium.

WTF?

Once you’ve configured the bot you preload it with your set of comments and it will cycle through them and drop them on the articles ( see code below in bold) — hence the repetition we see which makes us think hmmmm is this person real?

# Configure constants here
EMAIL = '[email protected]'
PASSWORD = 'password'
LOGIN_SERVICE = 'Google, Twitter, or Facebook'
DRIVER = 'Chrome, Firefox/Iceweasel, or PhantomJS'
LIKE_POSTS = True
RANDOMIZE_LIKING_POSTS = True
MAX_LIKES_ON_POST = 50 # only like posts with less than X posts.
COMMENT_ON_POSTS = False
RANDOMIZE_COMMENTING_ON_POSTS = True
COMMENTS = ['Great read!', 'Good work keep it up!', 'Really enjoyed the content!', 'Very interesting!']
ARTICLE_BLACK_LIST = ['Sex', 'Drugs', 'Child Labor']
FOLLOW_USERS = False
RANDOMIZE_FOLLOWING_USERS = True
UNFOLLOW_USERS = False
RANDOMIZE_UNFOLLOWING_USERS = False
UNFOLLOW_USERS_BLACK_LIST = ['DontUnFollowMe']
USE_RELATED_TAGS = True
ARTICLES_PER_TAG = 250
VERBOSE = True

Well that explains a lot doesn’t it.

If it looks like a bot, acts like a bot, it’s a BOT.

What can we do? Well I guess report our suspicions to Medium.

you can do this by going to Medium Support page here.

Or do the following:

Report a user

Go to the profile page of the user you want to report.
Click the three-dot button in the top-right corner of the page.
Click Report user.

The last thing we need are bots plaguing this platform!!

Oh and on the subject of Diana. She might be real but could be using a bot. 403 articles published with the majority in the last 6 months. And if you look at this chart, you’ll see they did nothing until suddenly in February when the engagement took off. The same time Diana became an actual member. Probably so the bot could get access and start automating things?

Sarah-Jane

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