Comment from r/ModSupport

Original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/modtalk/comments/bsnkld/tech_subs_be_advised_that_itnextio_is_spamming/

Medium.com allows blind redirects as do some other sites. I've gathered tons of evidence and submitted to both sites -- they both state it's against ToS -- but neither site saw a problem.

edit2, since r/modtalk is private, here's the full text of my post (to see the problem, click any of the Medium links and note where you end up):

Recently, I shadowbanned the domain itnext.io because we had a user that continued to post it after being warned not to (at the time of the warning, itnext.io constituted 89% of their submissions).

https://www.reddit.com/domain/itnext.io/

Today, a different user DM'd me to ask if it was banned, which I thought was odd because most users don't care or keep track very closely when something is shadowbanned -- it's only when they have a stake in things. So I checked out that user, and I find that they have quite a few submissions from itnext.io (60), but an even higher amount from medium.com (893).

Spidey-senses tingling, I clicked the first medium.com link, and I was 301 redirected to itnext.io. Ok, no big deal, I can just ban medium.com/@user. Then I clicked a few more medium links on their profile, and each of them 301'd to itnext.io. But after about the 3rd one, I noticed something: they were each from a different medium.com author!

"Fuck", I said under my breath.

The next 15 minutes almost sent me into a blind rage; I only audited a single user -- even though there are at least 3 redditors involved -- and discovered that they use a new medium.com account for every single post. I gave up after discovering 30+ medium.com/@user accounts that are involved in the spamming (see references below).

It would be worthless to ban the medium.com/@user accounts, because they're disposable and they will just make more. It's also worthless to action any of the reddit accounts because reddit accounts are just as easy to come by.

This is the direct result of the bullshit I called medium.com out on 3 years ago:

The Continued Decline of medium.com, or, YSK that medium.com Now Allows Transparent URL-Forwarding

I did contact medium.com support at that time, and explained my plight, but they told me it was "working as expected" and that there was nothing they would do.

For reference, here's the 3 redditors that are the main culprits I mentioned:

u/ kiarash-irandoust (the one I audited)
u/ EvoNext (the one I warned)
u/ jsloverr

It'd be nice if reddit offered some support, but we all know that's not going to happen. And it's already proven that medium.com doesn't care.

Seeing as it's a long weekend, perhaps I'll finally get around to writing a mod-bot; I've been putting it off because I didn't have a good reason to, but this is a very strong motivator for me.

Reference, medium.com/@user submissions:

https://medium.com/@luis_sserrano/testing-with-jest-and-vue-js-pocket-guide-7be290d20954
https://medium.com/@ilker/fa5b67d4965e
https://medium.com/@noringc/d094ac72e1fa
https://medium.com/@.gc/architecting-the-store-in-ngrx-e4955641d746
https://medium.com/@taniarascia/writing-a-snake-game-for-the-terminal-in-object-oriented-javascript-node-js-fc14158e7218
https://medium.com/@dee_bloo/fb48408af6a
https://medium.com/@tigranbs/ddbdc6a3f013
https://medium.com/@paul.motionimaging/why-you-need-prettier-in-your-life-if-you-work-in-a-team-8b0658dc1d89
https://medium.com/@wesgrimes/automatically-remove-all-unused-typescript-imports-in-a-project-afd4eb0e84b7
https://medium.com/@thatisuday/es5-29c14f3972fa
https://medium.com/@activenode/e95241d061f
https://medium.com/@andreygoncharov/4aba7af755d6
https://medium.com/@malimirkeccita/98c6de7a16e0
https://medium.com/@PavelLaptev/the-simpliest-d3-map-and-way-too-long-article-about-it-even-its-title-fc0f1d0bdf3f
https://medium.com/@lironhazan/20a5682935
https://medium.com/@jacobedawson/uploading-files-to-digital-ocean-spaces-with-vuejs-node-express-5d2361553518
https://medium.com/@simonlhoiberg/javascript-wizard-whats-up-with-this-92ca309172d6
https://medium.com/@hendrikwallbaum/2e80bc3391dc
https://medium.com/@kastepanyan24/3a03d699d255
https://medium.com/@paigen11/d3c4d7aa56d4
https://medium.com/@jjaybrown98/31ae35176eb0
https://medium.com/@anton.holmberg93/4d5dc4c1dd06
https://medium.com/@pavelpomerantsev/1829a69a0a56
https://medium.com/@jkeohan/f63e0244f77d
https://medium.com/@martin_stoyanov/81f81809275e
https://medium.com/@BrodaNoel/b06893f4974c
https://medium.com/@apechkurov/a-pragmatic-overview-of-async-hooks-api-in-node-js-e514b31460e9
https://medium.com/@metalculus84/vue-custom-route-hooks-3f50cc30bb87
https://medium.com/@dai_shi/injecting-a-client-side-script-in-graphql-playground-in-apollo-server-d23b6e3c901b
https://medium.com/@gokulchandrapr/48491c79ec74

edit: Going to make a last-ditch effort in contacting Medium, since I found this...

Spam

Posting content primarily to drive traffic to, or increase the search rankings of, an external site, product, or service

https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/213477928

Follow-up edit 6/6/19: Medium support replied with, "We are reviewing this matter in terms of our Rules, and will take action if appropriate." To the surprise of utterly nobody, nothing has been done to this day (10 days after that response). Fuck Medium.

Follow-up edit 6/16/19: reddit.com support replied with the usual bullshit about "We will investigate [...] we cannot share details on the actions we've taken.", and not a fucking thing has changed.