Was Your Medium Account Suspended?

Why a lot more people will get their accounts suspended in the future.

I looked into why some people’s accounts got suspended on Medium and explain why I think even more will get suspended in the near future.

I started writing on Medium in earnest the past several weeks, and as I wanted to increase the reach for my stories, I looked at the different Medium groups on Discord, Reddit and Facebook, and I eventually decided to share my story on two different Facebook groups.

At first, I was reluctant to join the groups because I wasn’t sure it was okay with Medium, and I didn’t want to attract readers who were not really interested in what I had to say.

I finally shared some articles, and as I was worried about directly asking for reads, I asked people to read my articles only if the article appealed to them.

It wasn’t a lot, but I was happy to get views and reads, and I can see why others often used these groups. It helped to get eyeballs on what I had written, and more importantly, it gave me motivation to continue writing.

On the other hand, there were things I disliked.

I got low quality engagement such as simple comments. I also had people demanding me to read and clap for their stories because they said they had done the same for me. Many of the shared stories for which they wanted my reciprocation were poorly written, articulated, and edited.

Cries of Innocence and Pleas to be Reinstated

In these groups, posts started appearing from members complaining that their accounts had been suddenly suspended. They wrote these posts hoping to hear from Medium because they had not heard anything directly back when escalating through the Medium site. Tony Stubblebine, Medium’s CEO, had answered a few questions in the past on one of the groups, so they were hoping he or someone from Medium would answer their question of why they were suspended.

Every person insisted that they were not plagiarizing stories or using AI, so they felt that they were being incorrectly targeted.

I wanted to know what was happening, so I started to dig around and look at the rules more closely as I didn’t want to fall afoul of Medium.

I also clicked on the profile of each user to see what stories they had shared with the group.

After doing a little research, I felt that I understood why many of these people got suspended.

I clicked on several of these people’s profiles who were complaining and saw their old posts. Post after post showed them sharing stories and asking for engagement while also saying they would reciprocate in return.

How did this lead to their suspension?

Medium is a Business

Medium is a business and wants to make a profit for the shareholders.

For Medium to grow, they need high-quality articles that will attract more subscribers. Tony and Medium have stated that they want to reduce the number of low-quality articles on the site.

In the above reply on a Facebook group, Tony says that “payment is for the quality of the writing and how authentically it resonates with readers.”

He wants high quality writing that resonates with readers.

This is in Medium’s best interest and our best interest.

If the number of poor articles increases, it reduces the overall quality of the site which leads to a drop in subscribers. If the overall quality goes up, subscriptions rise, which leads to better payouts for everyone.

Medium is attempting to increase the amount of quality writing by going after accounts that engage in coordinated inauthentic engagement.

Buster Benson of Medium, in a recent post, wrote:

“We see paywalled stories with a majority of engagement from a repeat set of members who heavily engage in consistently low-value/generic ways over a period of time.”

And as Tony says in the quote pasted quote below, “manufactured engagement is a form of growth hacking.”

What is manufactured growth hacking?

Growth hacking is where you write a story and then share that story in one or many different places with the sole purpose of getting and giving engagement so you can quickly get growth.

This in and of itself is not bad.

People share stories in all kinds of groups all the time. Some are groups made specifically for this, and other groups might be ones where friends or likeminded people get together to share stories and writing.

What makes it bad is if you consistently game the system by producing a lot of low-quality content and engage in low quality feedback so that you can get your article noticed by as many people as possible to earn money. This is manufactured growth hacking that Medium does not want.

Low Quality Content

When I was asked to reciprocate in these groups, even though there were well-written articles here and there, I found that much of the content was of very poor quality for most of the articles.

The articles looked as if they had been written without any real thought or structure and contained many grammatical mistakes. In most of these poorly written articles, the author was not able to clearly articulate what they wanted to say, and I found it hard to understand the whole point that the author was attempting to share.

Furthermore, I often felt that the articles had been written as quickly as possible. The writer had the intention of getting out as many articles as possible and asking for engagement on them so that these articles would earn money. Churn and earn.

Low Quality Feedback

In addition, many growth hackers participated in low quality feedback. They gave feedback that was inauthentic, usually a very short sentence with nothing really related to what was written. They also often highlighted whole paragraphs that sometimes were not that relevant to the main points of the article.

When this type of engagement is done repeatedly and consistently, especially in reciprocation from many of the same people, it is easy for Medium to see that the intent is to earn as much engagement as possible to earn money.

This is the growth hacking that Medium wants to eliminate.

Should People Use Groups to Share Their Writing?

I believe that using these accounts are both good for writers and for Medium when they are used correctly.

Buster added this in his article,

“we encourage all writers to share their stories with communities on and off Medium — we want writers to reach their audience and find new readers.”

Unfortunately, Medium’s algorithm is not good for new writers. I posted articles and got almost no views.

I feel that by using these groups, it helps to get new eyes on one’s work while also helping to attract engagement and new customers to Medium.

You might say that you would never participate in such a group, but you might be participating in one without really being aware that you are doing so. You might have joined a Medium course and been asked to share and support each other’s stories. You might write for a small publication and support the stories in the publication. You might be part of a sci-fi writer’s group on Discord and share your stories with each other.

This is why I think some accounts got suspended but were unsuspended when investigated.

Hopefully, Medium’s algorithm and investigations improve over time, but it would be nice to get an update from Medium on this.

Some Ideas on If You Run a Group Where You Share Stories

If you run a Medium group, here are some things I would suggest, but let me know what you think should be amended or added.

1. Do not allow members to ask for engagement of any kind. Just allow members to share stories. There should be no statements hinting, suggesting, or asking for reciprocation.

2. Ask the members to only support the community by reading a few of the stories each day. They should only read the story if it appeals to them. No one should be forced to read stories in which they have no interest.

3. If they like the story, it is up to them to decide whether to comment or clap.

(If someone has a community like this, please invite me!)

What should you do if I have been engaging in inauthentic growth hacking?

1. Immediately stop. You can continue, but do not be surprised when your account is suddenly closed.

2. Improve your writing and editing. This will benefit you in the long run. Your followers will grow organically, and you will get authentic engagement.

3. Spend time to write good stories. Write stories that have some kind of benefit for the reader — they learn something, they are entertained, they are educated, etc. Create good structure to help make the article easy to read.

4. Engage with genuine intention. Do not highlight everything. Do not give flippant comments. Only clap for articles you like.

The sooner you start the better because it will help to reduce the risk of getting suspended. If you are suspended, you can point to your recent articles giving proof that you are trying to improve.

Suggestions on what to do if your account was terminated.

Go through regular channels and appeal for reinstatement.

Explain to Buster and the Medium team that you understand you broke the rules and explain how you will strictly follow the rules going forward.

I don’t know if it would work, but it might. Owning up to one’s mistakes is much better than saying you did nothing when you know you did.

In extreme cases, you might ask if you could create an entirely new account and start over and explain how you would follow the rules. It would suck having to start from scratch, but if you really like writing, this might be allowed. Only Medium can answer this.

Why I wrote this article.

Selfishly, I still want to use these groups or ones where people better understand the rules, because I think they can help me gain traction until I am doing well enough without needing them any longer. Instead of relying on Medium’s algorithm to show my stories to people, I would rather share with a smaller number of people and know I am getting eyes on what I write.

Also, I see a lot of people still breaking the rules.

Even today, I looked through two groups and saw numerous people saying they would give engagement for engagement, and I saw people demanding reciprocation.

Instead of writing to each of these people one by one to stop and explain why their actions might lead to suspension, I would rather share this story with them.

In addition, I hope that it helps to reduce the amount of low-quality content that Medium is trying to limit.

In Closing

Yes, Medium isn’t perfect. It is a business that is trying to find its way. There will be ups and downs for everyone until it settles.

I really do approve of them going after people who are gaming the system, as this will eventually help lead to an increase in articles that are of better quality.

Please note that I do not work for Medium and that these are my opinions. If Medium chimes in with advice or corrections, I would be happy.

I normally write about mindset and procrastination.