Dear Medium, You Are Losing Me.
Call me paranoid, but sometimes it feels like I am being suppressed on Medium. As of this writing I have less than 20 views today. On a weekend, this is pretty unusual, so I looked a little closer. Not because I think I am losing large amounts of money, but I do try to generate traffic from outside Medium.
I do not expect to make a bunch of money here. I often just write stuff to do it. I do not even put it behind the pay wall. I understand my opinions are unpopular on the right AND the left. I understand I am unlikely to get a popular groundswell given the fact I have labored in obscurity literally for over thirty years.
It is a difficult road to not be a Democrat or a Republican and write about politics in this country. It is fine. I do not EXPECT to be curated. I would LIKE to be curated, but I do not EXPECT it. As long as I think the editors are earnest and fair, well then I keep paying my dues. I keep typing away creating stuff not too many people actually read, but at least it clears the decks for ME.
However, this statistical anomaly keeps occurring on my account. It seems to me it has been coincident with changes to their algorithm, but unsure. I have reported this situation more than once. I got a response the first time thanking me for making them aware. The second time no response, so I just stopped reporting it. Now I just write about it.
As I said I did report it, but it did not immediately go away. It lingered for days. Other times it has lingered for as long a week. This particular episode has now stretched over a week. Given the behavior of the other titans of social media I would not be surprised if there were not some statistical shenanigans going on. After all, I am a veteran of unpopular opinions. Google flagged me for operating a “hate” site because I was writing stuff apparently not approved by the central government. You decide for yourself why www.anyonebutbushin2004.com was flagged as a hate site.
On Facebook, I am often told my ads are rejected for no reason at all…”does not meet standards”. I am given no direction on what standards I am violating. After all what could possibly be wrong with an essay comparing the differences between libertarian-socialism and democratic-socialism, but it was rejected. Mark Zuckerberg also expects me to believe Americans have no interest in socialism.
Given these experiences it becomes easier for paranoia to take hold I guess. However, I really find this lack of transparency by Medium annoying. They will take my money and distribute to the authors they like and appear to suppress opinions they do not like. Even if I can drum up my own traffic, it somehow does not make it into the statistics. Why does this keep happening?
I have experience with my writing and my comments. I will tell you it takes a lot of traffic to get applause most of the time. Having unpopular opinions can do that. Ergo, when I see a comment with FOUR fans and ZERO views well on average this would usually require over one hundred views to generate four fans…maybe even more since views don’t always lead to reads.
So what is going on Medium? Why this sudden fall off in traffic? Why does it keep happening? Should I keep reporting it? Should I keep writing about it? I welcome any comments to help me decide what is next for me.
