Indeed, Medium’s credibility is being jeopardized by allowing this type of spamming and scamming to fester. I just don’t understand how the leadership of Medium is failing to devote the appropriate time and resources to remedy and proactively prevent this problem from recurring.

Medium is a for-profit entity. It is in their best interest to devote more resources to maintain the integrity and trustworthiness of the platform. It’s unacceptable to ask members to pay more money on one hand—per the Friend of Medium program—while the platform is denigrated on the other hand. No legitimate business entity asks customers to pay more money for a worse experience.

If Medium needs to contract out with cybersecurity experts then it should not waste any more time doing so. Otherwise, these persistent and preventable problems may break into the mainstream media, damaging the brand image—perhaps irreparably. Medium should consider this a crisis communications situation and act accordingly on behalf of the millions of loyal users who call this platform home for their writing and reading engagement. There’s simply no more time to waste.

The editorial leadership team should also address this issue head on, apologizing to users and explaining how it is trying to swiftly remedy the issue. That’s crisis communications 101.

Come on already, Medium, and do the right thing before our patience runs out!