Gutbloom said it would happen

Somebody blew it all up. This little corner of the internet where I could read hilarious and searing beacons of truth from Kel Campbell, where Mirah Curzer could break down the haters with rock solid arguments and boundless passion, where Tim Barrus exposed our self-centered, privileged selves for what they really were in the face of a truth we couldn’t deny, where Ellie Guzman could unshoulder a painful burden, where alto gave us a home to be our true selves.

Was it a cozy little echo chamber and now our bubble’s been burst? Maybe. But I have successfully engaged in thoughtful debate with people who profoundly disagree with me and we didn’t collapse into a fit of name-calling. I think what existed here was respect. We didn’t always agree, but we respected each other and with that came freedom and safety simultaneously (yes I know, two almost mutually exclusive things).

And then all this. The most basic of basic things on Medium — respecting each other as writers and our right to our copyright was violated. A person I won’t link to stole Kel Campbell’s article and by tweaking some words turned into a condescending, and profoundly disrespectful MRA article. I’m not linking to it because screw his read stats and you can’t compare the plagiarism and the original any more anyway because the original piece is gone. Kel Campbell removed her profile and today Medium lost one of its greatest and most authentic voices because it failed to protect her copyright.

elizabeth tobey, what is the word on the street about this? How is Medium making this right? Is he claiming fair use on the grounds that his piece is transformative or a parody? I understand fair use and I could see how he could make that case, but I also think that he used such an extensive amount of the original material that it would fail a fair use test.

Currently, women on Medium have a strong presence and so far have been able to speak their minds on a variety of issues without undue amounts of harassment (not say there hasn’t been any). While Twitter is known to be a somewhat sketchy place where you might receive death threats or be trolled mercilessly, a place I’ve hesitated to really engage, I’ve viewed Medium as a place where civil dialogue can take place. Honestly, this has shaken my faith and trust in the platform. I think the worst part of it was the fact that the piece of plagiarism made a mockery of her attempt to be honest and open. If you want people to be able to be vulnerable and authentic here, at the very least give them some protection as creators. You completely disagree with her, cool, write your own piece, post it as a response. That’s what responses are for. Or write your own piece entirely and link to her. Just respect her right as a writer.

Finally, I get the fact that this is the internet and we forfeit control over our material by posting it here and had he posted it elsewhere, fine, but Medium this is your house and you set the rules, and you are responsible for maintaining it. If you can’t protect us here on your own platform, what does that little radio button with “All rights reserved” even mean?