Tony, is this the Better Internet You’re Talking About?! [The Original Story] [Continously Updated]

Or Medium algorithm just got hacked…

note: this is the original story published on Medium, which was flagged for violation because of “targeted harassment” like a few other stories about the topic (details below). Because of that, I was pushed by Medium to heavily edit it, here is the link.

Please, do this exercise with me.

I want to know if it’s only me seeing this massive fraud happening right now on Medium, or if it’s nothing and I’m overreacting…

Go to your Medium home page.

Search for a topic — choose any of the big ones. I’ve checked all of those:

• Writing

• Relationships

• Mental Health

• Self Improvement

For this example, I choose “Writing”.

Take a look at the stories. Select those from writers, whose names are all written in sentence case (in my view, 50% of the recommended stories):

screenshot by author

I choose the one with 84k claps and 199 comments.

Check the story. I don’t want to criticize the style or subject, but as someone who’s studying AI, I can tell you I have a high level of certainty this is humanized AI writing. But not the average type. It’s the well-trained type, done by someone who knows how to use AI to generate human stories.

I do notice breaking grammar rules, and the plot has limited personal experience. Nothing deep or memorable. Anyone could have written this. I learn nothing from these stories.

Check the readers — those who are clapping and commenting. You’ll see reader accounts that have zero following, all created this year. In his case 9k of them! Go ahead and check any of them:

screenshot by author

Check the writer. It’s “pahal writes” who “vomits words”. This account started writing in January this year and already has 12.4k followers! Most of the stories have huge engagement:

screenshot by author

Now, let’s do another check — go back to the topic section. Scroll down to the “Who to follow” section, where writers (now also publications) are recommended to readers. Click on “show more” to see the whole list. Do you notice something?

I counted 33 of those writers, out of 79 total recommendations. That’s almost 50%! Almost every other recommendation!

And most of my favorite writers on that topic are gone — I can’t see Eve, Tim, Ayo, Deni, Kristina, and so much more. In order to continue reading them I have their profiles opened and go directly!

This is what I mean:

screenshot by author

Check another writer. I choose remi. This one is writing from May 2024 and already has 156k followers! All of her stories have the same huge engagement, no exceptions, not one!! See this:

screenshot by author

I checked everyone from the 33 I found in “Writing”.

There’s a pattern.

All of them were created this year, most of them in May. The majority of them with:

• huge following

• huge engagement on their stories

• writer names and story titles written in sentence case

• stories written in the same style (to me professional AI writing)

• most of their readers are also created this year, not members, with zero following

And they’re not only on the topic list. I see them in my feed, I see them in my topic following section, I see them in my profile “who to follow” section, I see them EVERYWHERE!

I’m wrong, it’s not a pattern, this looks organized to me. This is done at scale.

What are they? My guess:

A massive automated account farming scheme taking over Medium’s recommendations system and pushing away real writers!

Do you see this as I see it?

Or I’m overreacting?

Maybe it’s just TikTok taking over Medium…

Maybe…

But I’m curious…

These writers don’t earn from the stories, probably following Medium rules for AI-generated content not to put them behind the paywall.

But they also don’t have affiliate links or anything monetizable in their stories. So why do they do this? Are they testing the system? For what? I do see some of the readers’ accounts are already paid members.

Are they preparing to bring this to the Partner Program?

Or did they already do that with better-looking “real” profiles so that no one can notice the pattern? Are these the writers who got paid more in June?

Even if they’re not, it’s an excellent example of how you can game the system in its own rules, “hack” the algorithm and get recommended fast pushing out other genuine writers!

The real questions I’d like to ask Tony Stubblebine:

• Why does Medium allow, tolerate, and even recommend this? Why do these stories enter the standard distribution system? Why do we get recommendations for stories that are not behind the paywall and are most probably written by AI? Are those the “human” stories we’re supposed to read now?

• Is this who Medium recommends to readers now? Fake accounts? Organized automated engagement?

• Is this the “Better Internet” Medium is so passionately promoting right now?

I don’t mind if I don’t get a commentary on this from Tony or Medium staff. But I’d highly appreciate if Medium takes immediate action on this. And I’m convinced many other writers would appreciate this too.

EDIT 3rd of August 2024: Because Amy Widdowson now tries to convince me these accounts are genuine and authentic users, who brought their TikTok Audience to Medium, I researched further.

I looked at one writer’s TikTok account. They share their Medium stories there as a slideshow.

But I look deeper!

And I can tell you her TikTok doesn’t look right too.

If you notice, she started getting huge engagement on TikTok after she started sharing her Medium stories and not before. So where did these followers come from??

Also, take a look at another one — the TikTok only has Medium stories, so the engagement on TikTok comes from Medium and not the other way around. There’s no audience built before she started writing on Medium. Same with other writers, some of which have 78k followers on Medium, doesn’t even have such engagement on TikTok — his followers there are just 7k.

Amy, believe me, this is NOT engagement coming from TikTok…

Even if those accounts are authentic, I still don’t have an answer to those questions:

• WHY does Medium recommend AI-generated content via the standard distribution?

• WHY does Medium recommend stories that are not behind the paywall? Isn’t that working against Medium’s interest to gain more paid subscribers?

EDIT 5th of August 2024: This is getting bigger…so I want to document the history here:

• 1st I learned about this from Deni Sahaya and her story here. I wanted to dig deeper and understand what’s the impact on the readers and writers.

• 2nd was my story.

• 3rd was the story of Finn Tropy, who deleted it after Amy responded what she responded to this story (that this is genuine engagement, while real writers are getting revoked and banned…oh, wow!!). Fin wrote another story explaining why he deleted it and persenting more data, here.

• 4th was the story of Nikos Skordilis who also added a “follow the money analysis”, which I believe was the reason why his story is now marked as a violation of Medium rules.

EDIT: 9th of August 2024: It seems we raised some awareness…but not in the right direction…

• 5th: Zulie from Medium posted a “heabily edited email interview” with only 5 questions with Remi trying to prove authenticity. Still NOT answering my questions about AI and free stories getting recommended. Meanwhile, Finn’s story is also flagged for violation…mine too…

Turns out Remi and co are from the Philippines — a country, which “accidentally” just joined the Partner Program!!

EDIT: 13th of August 2024:

• 6th: Dr. Mehmet wrote about this sharing his perspective on how Medium actually helps these writers grow.

I also unlisted this story today, since Medium made me to. They see it as harassment. I’m now harassing the bots! This would make a great joke if it wasn’t so sad…

I’m gonna continue updating it, in order to document how this evolves. I’m also gonna write on Substack about the whole thing, since Medium censors me…

I made a research on TikTok, I got anonymous tips with more information, and I will share everything on my Substack soon.

EDIT: 16th of August 2024:

• 7th: Bella wrote a question to Tony about that problem, who finally answered! Bella is from the Philippines and took the time to explain in detail to Tony how this kind of fraud works. Tony promises to talk about it on Medium’s Day tomorrow…

EDIT: 21st of August 2024:

• I wrote an extended version after I received an anonymous tip and did research on TikTok. Read it here:

That’s all for now. I’ll keep you posted.

Please save this story and share it so that more people read about this problem and help make Medium take action (which they currently refuse…)

Thanks for reading!