The Rise of Fake Accounts on Medium: Why Is No One Stopping Them?

Claps, follows, and empty reads — how fake accounts are gaming the system while Medium looks the other way.

Made with Posternity.ai

Lately, I’ve noticed something on Medium.

Accounts will come, clap for your story, follow you, but they never actually read what you wrote. You can tell by visiting their profiles: all of their posts are about emotional and physical relationships between men and women. In other words, they’re not really the people who would be interested in your writing.

And here’s the strange part — are these even real people? That’s a question mark. These accounts are clearly fake, created to make money. It’s obvious that the events they describe never actually happened to them, and it’s also obvious that they’re using AI to generate content.

Yet, they are never banned, suspended, or revoked.

The common pattern among these accounts is quite clear:

• All of their stories revolve around male-female relationships.
• Without exception, every single story is paired with provocative images.
• They deliberately visit your page, randomly clap some of your old stories to grab your attention.
• They never engage in comments or meaningful interaction.

They’re not really the people who would be interested in your writing. Are they even real people?

I’m sure the Medium team knows about this — there’s no other way. So why aren’t they blocked? There could be a few reasons:

• There’s a huge demand for this type of content, and Medium benefits from it.
• Medium is aware but giving them some time to “correct themselves” (I honestly doubt this).
• Medium isn’t aware at all (and if that’s the case, it’s even more concerning).

I don’t know anymore. I feel like Medium’s quality has seriously declined, and it’s sad for them. A platform that was once respected shouldn’t come to this just for money. Please write your ideas on the comments.