Medium
Medium Just Provided Some Much-Needed Clarity on Recent Suspensions
It’s a welcome update from the platform hosts.
A recent spate of unexpected bans and suspensions on Medium created a great deal of anxiety for writers on the platform.
Some well-known creators vanished overnight, and some never returned.
It was a strange, worrisome time for everyone, including me.
- Would I be next?
- Would I inadvertently do something that would trigger the spam filter and get my account suspended?
- If so, would I even be allowed back?
Scary biscuits.
Answering the call
A lot of writers called for clarification and increased transparency on what exactly had happened. Thankfully, Medium have now responded to that call.
Buster Benson explained via The Medium Blog:
“After spending several weeks adjusting the queries and individually reviewing accounts, [Medium] suspended about 1.7% of active Partner Program writer accounts that had been flagged to be likely participating in some form of fraudulent activity.”
He went on to say that the vast majority of suspensions were uncontested, meaning those accounts were most likely fake or used purely for spam/fraudulent purposes.
Those that were mistakenly suspended were reinstated, with Medium offering clarity on why it’d happened in the first place.
I’d been waiting to hear Medium’s response to the suspensions, so Buster’s article was a welcome read.
For me, this was the most encouraging part:
“We have no intention of permanently suspending accounts that engage in honest and authentic usage of Medium, and we will go out of our way to reinstate any accounts that were incorrectly flagged.
This is good for readers, but it’s also good for writers: by suspending these fraudulent accounts, we are redistributing those funds back to writers.”
Personally, I’m pretty sick of receiving fake responses to the comments I leave on well-written articles by genuine writers on this platform. I try to read and engage with a decent number of stories each day, and it’s always frustrating to get a reply notification, only to discover it’s been sent automatically by a spambot.
AI-generated content is also super tiresome (what’s the point?), so it’s good to see Medium taking action to tackle both of these issues.
Best practice
Buster also clarified precisely what Medium wants to see from its writers:
“We strongly recommend that communities, publications, and writers focus much less on reciprocal engagement as a strategy for positive feedback and earnings, and focus much more on the craft of writing, expressing yourself, contributing wisdom to the dialogue, providing insightful and constructive commentary, and connecting to others through the power of your words!”
Again, this is very welcome direction. I like when Medium’s transparent about why they’ve chosen to do things a certain way, and what exactly they want to see from writers.
Transparency helps everyone (except the spammers, who thrive in the muddled grey areas).
Don’t stop
More of the same please, Medium.
Keep tackling the spambots and fraudsters. Keep snuffing out the time-wasting AI-generated garbage.
Keep the dialogue going between us writers and those behind the scenes.
Medium’s a great platform. Let’s find ways to make it even better.
What’re your thoughts, readers?