Medium Has A Spam Problem

And nobody on the staff seems to care

Screen capture by the author

Recently I visited the Sexuality section of Medium, curious to see who was writing there and whether there was anything of interest. What I found was 90% of the stories were clearly spam, all the same: <celebrity name> Leaked Video Viral On Social Media. Dozens of such posts, all supposedly by “different” authors, all containing a link to a supposed video.

Literally 90% of the supposed content in Medium’s Sexuality section was clearly the most obvious spam, always using exactly the same formula, with only the celebrity name(s) changed, the photo vaguely relevant, and the author name one of several aliases. The spam is designed to get the unwary to click on the link in the article, which probably downloads malware and may also take the person to some phishing website. I don’t click on bogus links so I can’t be sure, but that’s how this sort of mindless trash usually works. It’s the equivalent of a small child smearing feces on a book because they can’t read, or the Nigerian Scam promising you tens of thousands of dollars if only you’ll help a Nigerian Prince transfer some money to a US bank account — while sending an up-front fee from your own bank account to get the ball rolling.

You’d think, given how obvious the spam is and how it always uses exactly the same headline, that someone at…