Mike: Below is some expert feedback I got from a Medium member who is a former Silicon Valley tech expert who worked on cybersecurity issues. It's probably not what you wanted to hear, but just reinforces the fact that we all must be extra vigilant, self-police, block, report and hope Medium takes stringent corrective measures and more proactive prevention. It also would be helpful for the Medium Staff editors to be more transparent with users by publicly acknowledging this recurring problem — in the Medium Blog — with the same types of info and guidance that you, Aiden and Dr. Yildiz have consistently provided to promote vigilance. So, here's what the tech expert--noted above--told me (quoting directly but maintaining the person's anonymity, bold added for emphasis):

"Unfortunately, it’s not possible to completely prevent clone phishing on any platform. The high-risk finance apps do extra verification at the registration itself to prevent this. But for social apps, it’s really common to just have cloned accounts. But there are a couple of best practices— first and foremost is educating and spreading awareness among users to identify fake messages from clone accounts. Big organizations periodically do this, Medium should at least boost articles related to these phishing attacks or publish their own. It costs nothing! Never seen them send any emails on this matter. Another practice is to provide account verification badges for users who have more followers. Instagram already does this. It can be a slow process with backlogs but it’s worth it. Medium is only providing badges for verified authors, which if you ask me serves no purpose for anything."