Summary

Medium has addressed and resolved a large-scale fraudulent activity that affected the earnings of its Partner Program writers, ensuring that the affected authors will receive their rightful earnings.

Abstract

Medium has successfully tackled a significant issue where fraudulent accounts were siphoning funds from the Medium Partner Program since late September. The platform identified the problem, suspended the offending accounts, and is in the process of recalculating and crediting the affected writers with their missing earnings. Medium has communicated this update to its writers, emphasizing the importance of their contributions and the company's commitment to safeguarding their earnings. The incident involved systematized bulk engagement and automated interactions, which are against Medium's policies. Writers are assured that they will see adjustments in their October earnings report, and Medium has reinforced its stance on protecting its platform and its writers from such fraudulent activities.

Opinions

The author expresses relief and satisfaction that Medium has taken action against the "spammy Medium arse pirates," suggesting a positive resolution to the issue.
There is a clear indication of frustration with the initial occurrence of the earnings dip, as well as with the delay in Medium's response.
The author emphasizes the importance of authentic engagement on the platform, contrasting it with the inauthentic and fraudulent behavior that led to the issue.
The author suggests that writers should not be overly concerned about their genuine engagement affecting others negatively, as the fraud was on a massive scale that genuine interaction could not replicate.
There is an underlying tone of caution directed at users who might engage in inauthentic activities, warning them that such behavior could lead to account issues.
The author approves of

Medium Is Crediting Our Missing Earnings!

The spam pirates have been stopped, booty recovered, and you’ll get your gold doubloons

**Ok, it won’t be a chest full of gold coins, but it will be a few extra dollars added to your digital account (but that didn’t make for a fun photo).** Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels

The scammy spammy Medium arse pirates that fraudulently attacked the Medium Partner Program — and caused our earnings to dip since around September 25th — have been captured and dealt with.

The pirate zombie vampires are no longer sucking the platform dry — and they’ve been made to walk the plank. In case you haven’t heard what’s going on, I (and a lot of others) wrote about the whole debacle, on the earnings issue, and the first update, here.

Medium has (finally) issued a response about the pirated booty, in an email being sent to the affected parties. I haven’t received it yet, and don’t know how long it will take, so I wanted to let my peeps know the update ASAP.

Here is Medium’s message. I didn’t put it in block quotes because that’s a lot to read in italics and it hurts my eyeballs:

“Medium Partner Program participants,

We recently discovered organized fraudulent activity impacting payments for some Partner Program writers, and want to inform you about it and let you know what we are doing to protect authors from being affected.

You may have seen a decrease in earnings starting around September 25th through the first few days of October. During this time, we discovered significant fraudulent activity from a small number of accounts targeting our program to specifically divert funds. Our team has suspended these users.

To be clear: This was fraudulent activity at scale, specifically prohibited on our platform. Medium’s rules disallow systematized bulk engagement for the purpose of generating revenue, as well as registering accounts, posting content, or interacting with users or content automatically, systematically, or programmatically.

We will be re-calculating and applying earning adjustments to all writers that were affected by the activity of the fraudulent accounts. If your account was impacted, you will see a credit on your October earnings report by the end of this month.

Our writers are the backbone of this platform, and protecting Partner Program writer earnings from fraud is our top priority.

Best,

Medium Team”

Phew. The pirates have been made to walk the plank, the zombies hacked into pieces and the earnings-sucking vampires had a stake driven through their cold, spammy hearts.

They’re gone.

We can go back to our regularly-scheduled shenanigans and fuckery now.

For those worried that their high levels of engagement are hurting others, it’s not. This fraud event was at a massive scale. You can’t engage authentically at the scale they’re talking about, there aren’t enough hours in the day alongside other life happenings.

**Inauthentic engagement is a form of piracy on this platform. Don’t fly a pirate flag with this behavior; let your authentic freak flag fly.** Photo by Maria Teneva on Unsplash

If you aren’t being authentic, well, technically this scam attack still doesn’t apply to you. But I would be careful, as inauthentic engagement (not reading things but clapping and commenting, copy-and-pasting the same comments 1,000 times, etc.) could result in issues with your account.

Just engage authentically, with the writers you adore, and everything will be hunky-dory.

As for ‘how much’ they will be crediting. I would think it will be in line with how much your earnings dropped, based on the reads and engagement you received. So there’s no magic money, it will only be money you earned and are missing — which would be 100% fair (in my opinion).

Robin Wilding, reporting from…a deserted island, with a chest missing a few doubloons.