Follow-for-follow Will Get You Banned From the Medium Partner Program

This is what the new CEO says

I’ve been writing here since October last year. I got my first 100 followers by writing articles that people wanted to read. I didn’t use the follow-for-follow tactic that some use because I think it’s just plain stupid.

I even wrote why I think that back in November last year.

But I still got requests in comments asking me to follow other writers because they had followed me. I got so fed up with it that I started blocking people that asked me.

The cold, hard facts are that if you’re not capable of getting 100 followers organically, you’re not going to make much money anyway. That makes it pointless to even bother joining the Medium Partner Program.

Back in March this year Vritant Kumar wrote a story about his take on follow-for-follow.

And guess what? 5 days ago, the new CEO, Tony Stubblebine, commented on his story. He said:

We will clarify shortly that follow for follow is bad faith and disqualifying.

The comment was in reply to the following statement by Vritant:

I know Medium’s recent Partner Program policies mandates having at least 100 followers to monetize your stories.

So, I assume Tony means that using follow-for-follow will disqualify you from the MPP. You may also get banned from Medium, but it’s not entirely clear from what he wrote.

As most that write here want to earn money, it amounts to the same thing.

And here’s the funny thing. Or maybe it’s the sad thing. Or maybe the annoying thing.

The next comment after Tony’s says:

Follow me

So, even after the new CEO comments that follow-for-follow will get you banned from the MPP, someone asks to be followed.

Some people deserve to get banned.

Another interesting point to note is that Tony commented on a story from March. That means that the new CEO is paying attention to older stories here. That’s very interesting.