Digital Vulnerability and Getting Kicked Off Medium
tl;dr: Getting kicked off of Medium’s platform is a reminder of the risks we all take using services of a single provider.
There was a really interesting debate on a recent Exponent podcast (“Principle Stacks”) about Facebook.
The topic had to do with Zuckerberg’s interaction with AOC during a congressional hearing.
Zuck was confronted with a political ad that Facebook had published which was false.
AOC had challenged him basically asking, “why do you let this run?”
The podcast debate, however, was illuminating because pointed out the ridiculous notion behind this and it highlighted Zuckerberg’s main point.
“While we can all agree that a given particular ad is offensive and deceiving, where is the line? And are you sure you want me [i.e. Zuck] to be the person who decides that?”
The answer, of course, is no. We don’t want Zuckerberg to be the final arbiter of truth and, more importantly, HE doesn’t want to be that person either.
And the double irony of the hearings was the conflicting notions of “Facebook has too much power” with “Facebook should be policing all of the content.”
Platform-Risk and Censorship
What’s highlighted in this discussion are two sides of the same coin.
When a business or an individual is singularly dependent upon a given service provider, a substantial amount of risk is being assumed, both consciously and unconsciously.
There is “platform-risk,” where the decisions that a company makes can adversely affect those people who depend on that business. This it the case every time that an API is shut down or, as Yelp learned the hard way, Google changes its search algorithm.
The other side is “censorship,” and that is what is at the heart of the Facebook discussion. Some people want Facebook to censor other people. Facebook doesn’t want to be in the business of censorship, they are in the profit-maximization business based on ads.
Either way, as a consumer or a business, Facebook (or any other centralized provider) can affect your life and your livelihood.
Getting Kicked off Medium
All of this is top of mind for me because I just got a notice saying that my Medium account was suspended because I violated their terms of service.
For a few months now, I have been re-posting content from this blog on Medium, which apparently is a no-no.
Medium figured it out and told me to take them all down, which I didn’t do and now the account is suspended.
I have no problem with Medium having rules and saying “you must post original content only or we will take you down.”
It’s their site and it’s their prerogative.
But it’s a reminder of the digital vulnerability we all have by choosing this route.
Choosing Digital Invulnerability
I’m not particularly upset by this Medium development. It’s annoying but all it does is give me further motivation.
Right now, there are no crypto-blogging platforms that will give me feature-parity (publishing, RSS, and email subscribers) compared to WordPress or Blogspot.
I’ve tried Sigle on Blockstack and Scribe on Arweave.
They are early stage products and not quite ready for prime time, but as soon as they are even close, that’s where I am going to go.
There are digital chokepoints all around me and I feel them.
- ICANN controls the DNS for the Never Stop Marketing URL.
- Our hosting provider controls the server
- Word Press controls the software.
- Verizon controls access to the Internet.
I believe that single points of entry are liabilities.
Medium reminded me of my vulnerability and I thank them for doing so.