MEDIUM: A big earthquake inside the platform which costed me my ACCOUNT SUSPENDED! (and reintegrated
I started writing on MEDIUM on December and I was so excited by the intellectual mood inside the platform that I published 10 stories in 21 days, monetizing 7.5 dollars.
I paired my efforts on Medium with Pinterest: one of my best ever seen Pins is redirecting to a story I published on Medium, so they both reinforced each other.
I was really happy with my dedication and focus, when late at night I received an email from Medium, saying that my account had been SUSPENDED FOR POLICIES' VIOLATION.
Now, I did not watch my face in the mirror, but I was pretty sure my face looked SHOCKED!
Before taking any step into the platform, I read and watched how seasoned writers managed their third party links, affiliate links and external links! More, I am a Wealthy Affiliate member since one year (actively) so I know how to give value to readers before placing any link.
I soon realized that there was no real fault by my side, on the contrary Medium is facing an internal earthquake which is leaving many victims behind:
- the monetization program has been blocked to all writers for one week
- in the meanwhile, Medium is trying to block all the spammers and scammers who are destroying the platform (relying on AI)
- many seasoned account have been suspended without any good reason
So in this epic battle between Medium and scammers, many genuine writers have seen their account lost, with the possibility to appeal.
Of course, I have appealed, they have check my account was genuine, my stories were human written and my interaction natural and not forced to gain more followers.
With all my frustration and thinking it was not possible to rely on Medium, I deleted all my stories (of course, I have a copy of them in my pc), while those same stories were generating money, were ranked extremely well on Google, and worked so well with Pinterest too.
The initial shock had been so intense that I refused to write on Medium for one month, but watching how one of my best pin was directing to one story, convinced me to start writing again with no pressure!
LESSON TO LEARN from my story
- Luck is blind but unluck sees you perfectly :)
- Don't put all your eggs in one platform NEVER
- Make a copy of all you contents ALWAYS!!!
- Don't let the frustration guide your instinctive actions (will probably you will regret later!)
I will keep on writing about my Medium journey (or hell?) we will see!
Kisses
Suomii
P.S. 100% Human written content :) Here it is my Medium account, but let's be cool and don't clap too much to each other! Lol!!
Recent Comments
22
Sorry this happened to you. I had Reddit do that to me and stayed away from medium as I thought they were similar.
Thanks for the heads up. Some of the administrators are tin tyrants
Steve
Yeah Steve, the feeling of getting banned was not great at all, but I have considered all the benefits of being on Medium (and there are A LOT!!!) that I calmed down, let it go the anger, and re-focus.
I will explain the Medium's benefits on following posts! :)
First, congratulations on getting your account back. Second, do you feel you rushed too quickly and deleted your articles?
AI driven content is taking over and the articles are good when done right. There is no stopping it. They can all they want it’s not going to end anytime soon.
The problem comes when. You lost too many article in such a short time.
It’s not humanly possible to posts 10 articles in 1 day when human writing.
I hope it calms down there and all this AI stuff ain’t going away. Microsoft has spend billions and am sure Google has invested the same or even more.
I posts two article on there and they hardly get any views. Maybe you can enlighten us on how to get better views for our articles.
Cheers
Hi Mike,
no honestly I don't think I was rushing too much, but what made them suspicious were my interactions!
Now, let me tell you that I have been lucky enough to find a small community of artists who were sharing my same values and experiences (because I send my writings to publications right away!) So we were interacting on some painting exercises and Medium saw innatural those interactions which were perfectly legit!
My biggest tip is: select the publications related to your topic, read their selection requirements and send the stories to them. You will get more visitors and reads. I chose SMALL pubblications so I did not have many writers competing to be accepted and it worked as strategy.
Now, I have applied to a wayyyyyyyy more bigger pubblication (Counter Arts) which has been a little bit tougher to be admitted (they read my stories first, and told me to send them a draft before self-publishing the story) and gave me strictly rules to write the story (they need an essay format). I am preparing the text for them in these days.
My second tip is: interact in a genuine way! Write always the comments in a natural language but don't over-interact (that's why I deleted the app from my phone so I keep my interactions lower) :))))
Hi Romy! I’m still waiting to see if it’s a good time to join Medium. Been thinking about it for awhile.
Just have patience for a little while yet! There are good signs that the monetization will increase again, but they are still doing the hard job to clean the environment from scammers, so there is still a sense of anxiety! :)
Thanks for the information. I have noted the use of AI generated content more and more on articles there which is more than likely why they started cracking down. The Medium platform is for writers, and I believe that excludes AI authors. With the introduction of AI, we are losing the ability to think and relying on a machine to do things for us.
Sometimes even injecting ourselves into the content may not be enough. We all should expand our mind and return to the art of writing without the assistance of Evil AI.
We all possess creativity! It is up to us to let it shine!
I hope your appeal is successful! I wish you luck!
Michael
I decided to write my first ever 100% human post on my guitar site. I want to see if it gets any more traction than the AI-assisted ones I’ve been doing. 🤞
Yes Michael, my appeal was successful and my account had been reintegrated in just one day!
Honestly, there are many good writers and stories on Medium, and after reading their good content, you can spot the scammers in just 1 second!
That's why they are giving more importance to publications and curated content on one side, and they are also lowering the monetization to ALL writers, so the good ones will start report the scammers in order to see the environment clean again, and come back to the previous income!
I have read and enjoyed an article you have posted there. Your love for your craft shines through with your words. Excellent writing!
Michael
Oooooooohhhhhhhh! Your words make me move inside!!! Really! As human artists, we are in the mission to sparkle the love for humans and humans' arts! So thank you, thank you, thank you!!
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Hey Suomi,
1) Are you already monetized on Medium?
2) Were you totally suspended or could you still access your account and articles?
Ciao Hein, yes in 21 days I did 7.40 dollars with 10 stories.
When they suspended me (just for 1 day), they gave me the chance to download my stories (but I always save a copy of them in my pc, anyway).
When they suspend you, they BLOCK right away your PARTNER PROGRAM so you cannot request your money anymore. Now the funds are available to me again and I can request the payout!
So, keep on writing and interacting on Medium but with moderation. This way, you won't encount any problem
Ok, so that wasn't an account suspension then. With account suspensions, you are not able to access your profile at all. They usually do that to con-artists and scammers only, or if you insult or discriminate against someone. AI writing is allowed in general, as they cannot go against that. They can however, temporarily suspend your MPP if you don't comply with their ridiculous rules. Many great writers have already left since August, and I have considered it too. However, with affiliate marketing and their 95% DA, it would be unwise not to take advantage of that.
Just be careful as many writers don't reciprocate your engagement, they read as many articles as possible but fake it mostly, in the hopes to get all those writers to read them back.
The earnings problem will hopefully be sorted soon, because writers are leaving daily now and they are losing a lot of money with that.
No dear, it was a suspension as they stated in their email, because they blocked me my payout and the funds they should pay me.
I guess for them was more important to block my money rather then blocking my contents' access. Infact, there was a link to download the contents.
I agree with you: our main goal writing on Medium is to help our SEO with backlinks and their DA, if some cents arrive, it is just a side effect. :)