Medium Sucks and I’m Not Bothering Anymore
Enjoy your Echo Chamber.
I think I just liked the aesthetic. I join Medium some time ago because I liked the way it looked. I thought it would be a good place to post anything. They wanted you to do YOUR journalism. Tell YOUR stories.
At least, that’s the way it seemed at first.
Then, they changed the way everything worked, and I saw my few reads dry up to a trickle. I started noticing huge publications with lots and lots of supporting organizations grow up almost overnight. Medium just became a place where companies found an audience. Newspapers without the paper.
Which is fine. The wilderness gets fenced in. Organization beats anarchy. Tale as old as time.
But that made the struggle to get my voice heard the harder. So like a lot of folk, I stopped trying as hard. Then at all.
But I thought I might still use it, throw up the occasional piece, maybe comment when the spirit moved me. I didn’t expect to be rewarded with instant hits and likes. I didn’t expect much at all.
But I did hope that Medium would let me be, doing that.
There was nothing in this email to describe how anything I had done had specifically violated these rules. So I sent them an email inquiring what content had caused this suspension, and what I might do to get my account reinstated. No answer. So I emailed again, and again. Nothing.
Yesterday, however, it was reported that Medium.com had also suspended the accounts of Mike Cernovich, Jack Posobiec, and Laura Loomer — all figures identified as “alt-right” — and it may therefore be surmised that, like Twitter and Facebook, Medium.com has begun to effectively prohibit conservatives from using their platform.
It’s funny, I found Medium via Twitter. Back in the day, you used to have to have a Twitter account to join. Why I’m surprised that Medium is now using dubious “harassment” policies (for which read: arguing successfully) to cull conservatives the same way Twitter did is something of a mystery.
Stacy McCain is a journalist. He doesn’t harrass. He argues. He calls out things for what they are. He uses people’s own words to describe their ideologies. But people don’t like having their beliefs held up to question, so they claim “harrassment”.
Now, I’m not important enough to ban. I probably never will be. But this gives me a good reason to stop using a platform that stopped making me feel valued some time ago. Medium is now a platform for left-progressives, by left-progressives. I’m not interested in reading an unbalanced platform like that, and I’m not participating in it.
I’m pulling everything I’ve written off. Except this. This can stay.
No one will read it anyway.
