When My Medium Account Got Suspended

Just the other day, I was signing up for an app and like most of them, they ask to confirm that you have read and agree to the rules and policies. If you are like many of us, you quickly click yes and agreed without reading anything. So just today, when I realised I had not received any notification from medium for a while — a really awesome blogging platform by the way that I urge you to try at least once; I thought to myself: Wait, something must be a miss.

I had been going through a writers’ block of some sorts so I really had not posted anything for a couple of weeks. I had not even got any email from Medium’s digest for a couple of weeks. So I followed the link to my last story which I had shared on my facebook wall, and alas I notice my page is suspended.

Seeing the word “suspended” evokes a lot of memories from my high school. A suspension letter was written, typed and addressed to your parent or guardian. This letter was handed to you. You could be suspended for any period of time from school ranging from 1 day to indefinitely, depending on the gravity of your offence. The challenge was, that though the suspension letter was addressed to your guardian, a copy was also always posted on the school noticeboard. For some reason, the school always had the same template they used for all suspension letters irrespective of your offence.

It went like:

Dear <Name of Guardian on File>; Your Son, <Your Name>, is being suspended from school with effect from today for a period of <Specify Period>. Despite several warnings and punishments, <Your Name> has persistently failed to live up to the requirements and expectations of this school. He is therefore being sent back to you over this period, during which we expect you to remind him about the expectations that he signed up for as part of this school. At the end of this period, please report back with <Your Name> to recommit to the standards expected of him as part of this community.

You can imagine the shock that would greet a parent upon seeing you in the middle of the school term and receiving such a generic letter that has words like “despite several warnings and punishments” — which sometimes would not be true for your case. More than that, the fact that a copy of the suspension letter would stay pasted on the school noticeboard for the period of your suspension would keep you in check for the next couple of years.

So, apologies for anyone who could have found my page inaccessible over the last few weeks. I only noticed today. And that’s when it dawned on me that I had never really read the medium rules. Please take time and read them if you use the platform. Reading through the rules made me realise that my account could have been disabled in error since Medium commits to give advance notice before disabling any content — which notice I had not received. By the time I accessed the rules page, I had already written to them via their help page to seek for clarity on the reason for my suspension. In less than an hour, I was back online, a little panicky on what could have been the reason for my suspension but excited to be reactivated so fast.

Perhaps it is a reminder to me to always read the blue print whenever I can before I sign up for anything — and yes to have all my posts stored somewhere else other than on one platform. It never hurts to have a backup plan.