Summary

Medium's recent purge of spam accounts led to a significant drop in followers for many users, prompting questions about the platform's delayed response to the issue.

Abstract

The article discusses the surprise and confusion many Medium users experienced upon discovering a sudden decrease in their follower counts due to Medium's removal of spam accounts. Despite the positive outcome of a more authentic audience, the lack of clear communication from Medium about the purge caused initial panic and frustration among writers. The author acknowledges the benefits of removing spam but criticizes Medium for not addressing the issue sooner, given the scale of the problem. Medium has since promised to monitor for spam accounts more vigilantly and ensure that follower counts reflect genuine engagement.

Opinions

The author supports the removal of spam accounts and bots but questions why Medium took so long to address the issue.
There is a sense of dissatisfaction with Medium's communication strategy, as many users, including the author, were not directly informed about the purge.
The author believes that the number of followers on Medium does not significantly impact a writer's exposure or success, which is more influenced by publications, search engines, and social media.
The author is skeptical about the reasons behind Medium's delayed action against spam accounts and speculates on possible explanations for the timing of the purge.
There is a concern that legitimate accounts may have been mistakenly removed in the process, and the author invites feedback from those who might have been affected.

The Real Question Is: Why Did It Take Medium so Long to Purge Itself of Spam Accounts?

Many woke up shocked one morning to find a huge number of followers had disappeared

I missed the initial buzz over the incident of the lost followers. I was traveling and hadn’t been on my Medium account for a few days.

It wasn’t until a day or so after the event that I realized my follower account had dropped by a few hundred. And then I started seeing the many articles of writers lamenting the loss of hundreds (and even thousands in some cases) of followers.

Medium explained in their blog, “As part of our ongoing work to provide the best possible user experience, we’ll be removing spam accounts from your follower and following counts across Medium starting today.”

This, of course, is fantastic news. Writers want their work read by real people, and nobody wants to be followed by an army of bots.

However, with a familiar and all too unsurprising lack of communication on Medium’s end, it came as a shock to many.

Yes, Medium had explained it all in their 3 Minute Read blog. But I didn’t see this article until another article written by a Medium writer pointed me to it. The 3 Minute Read never shows up in my feed even though I follow it. Nor did I get an email from Medium explaining the purge.

By my unscientific research, it seems most people have lost an average of about 10% of their followers. Some less and some more, in some cases, a lot more. The first round of articles included much panicking, as the reason for the loss didn’t seem to be widely understood initially.

Now, I am all for Medium clearing out the spam accounts. I’m also not shaken up about losing a few hundred followers. Yes, it’s nice to see your numbers go up, but other than for your ego or maybe credibility, I can’t tell that increasing follower counts does much for you on Medium.

At least it doesn’t for me. Maybe the big-time names with tens of thousands of followers see a benefit. But I’m pretty sure the vast majority of my followers don’t see a single story I write. I get more exposure through publications, Google searches, Twitter, and pure luck.

So, if I’m not worried about losing my followers and I’m happy about the spam accounts going away, what am I here to complain about?

The answer is: What in the heck took you so long to do this, Medium? Some people lost 1,000 followers. 1,000! That means they had 1,000 spam accounts and/or bots following them. Publications reported dropping by many hundreds or thousands as well.

Why was this allowed to go on for so long? Why wasn’t it easier to identify the spam accounts and rid the platform of them in the first place? How could it build up so great that people lost massive numbers of followers in one instance? Followers that were actually just fake accounts.

Medium does say in their blog that they will keep a better eye on things to come. “We will continue removing spam and other disingenuous accounts from Medium on a daily basis, as well as accurately reflecting your unfollow actions.”

They assure us, “you won’t see significant shifts in your follower or following counts going forward, and you can trust that your followers are authentic and engaged.”

And they remind us if we see anything suspicious, to alert them, “You can always flag an account you suspect of spam or other rules violations using our reporting tools for us to take a look at.”

I hate to complain too much about Medium. After all, here I sit, writing on Medium. But I do wish they would work a bit harder at communicating major changes to their writers.

If they can email me dozens of daily articles on how to make $1,000 per month, you’d think they could add on important tidbits of information. As in, maybe you will lose thousands of followers overnight.

Not that we will ever get the true story, but I’d love to know how it all went down that they one day decided they were done with the spam accounts.

Did they:

a) not know there were spam accounts until just the other day?

b) not care there were spam accounts until just the other day?

c) they knew and cared but didn’t know what to do about it until just the other day?

d) they did this on purpose knowing it would create an exciting controversy we’d all be talking about?

Either way, moving forward they seem to have it together now. Although my next pondering is, did they get any of these deleted accounts wrong? Did a legitimate reader wake up to find their account disappeared overnight?

If you have answers to any of these serious questions, I’d love to hear from you. That is, assuming you’re not a bot.