Updating Our Rules — June 2023

Summary

Medium is updating its rules in June 2023 to better address hateful conduct, protect intellectual property, and improve clarity and readability.

Abstract

Medium has announced updates to its platform rules to reflect the evolving use of its service and to protect underrepresented groups. The updates include a more comprehensive definition of hateful conflict, which now explicitly prohibits slurs, deadnaming, and intentional misgendering. The platform is also cracking down on plagiarism and copyright infringement, with no warnings or appeals for offenders. Medium has streamlined its rules page by removing redundant sections for better readability. The company emphasizes its commitment to fostering understanding and education by maintaining a safe space for diverse viewpoints, particularly in support of LGBTQIA+ rights. Users are encouraged to report violations and can track changes to the rules on GitHub.

Opinions

Medium believes in the importance of adapting its rules to protect against targeted hate and to support the rights of underrepresented groups.
The platform stands firmly against plagiarism and copyright infringement, indicating a strong stance on intellectual property rights.
Medium values transparency and accountability by tracking changes to its rules publicly on GitHub.
The company's actions suggest a dedication to creating a welcoming environment for sharing experiences and viewpoints.
Medium's updates reflect a commitment to staying current with cultural conversations and ensuring its policies evolve to maintain a constructive and inclusive community dialogue.

Updating Our Rules — June 2023

This month, we are updating our Rules. As the world evolves, so do the ways in which people use Medium. To accommodate this, we regularly assess our rules, and adjust them accordingly.

We believe that through helping people share their experiences and viewpoints, we can foster greater levels of understanding, education, and acceptance. We realize that, at various moments in the larger cultural conversation, certain underrepresented groups become targeted, and our rules need to quickly evolve in order to maintain our mission of moving conversation forward. You can read more in our in post “Medium stands for LGBTQIA+ rights.”

New changes to our rules include expanding and improving the language around how we define hateful conflict to include slurs, deadnaming, and intentional misgendering.

Additionally, please note that accounts who plagiarize or commit copyright infringement will not be warned, and are not eligible for appeal. Please only post content to Medium which you own or have clear permission to use. If you are unsure if you can use someone else’s content, please see the EFF’s article on “Intellectual Property.”

We also did some general editing clean up, and removed redundant sections to make the rules page cleaner and easier to read.

The Medium Rules are available here. We track changes to our rules on Github so you can see how they evolve.

If you find content or accounts you feel violate our rules, please report it. You can use this form to provide more detail or to report other conduct. Additionally, you can always send an email to [email protected].