It is getting really bad. My new theory - given Medium's apparent disregard for the matter - is that it's now their new gameplan. They've pivoted from being a writing platform to an online casino, in which AI bots are invited to try to game each other and other punters to see who can claim a pot bigger than their subscription. So long as the house skims a cut off the top, they don't care how bad - or stinky - the punters in the pit are.

For starters they could just run an automatic check on any article that contains the word 'tapestry' or any variation of 'our fast-paced modern world', or has a colon separating a two-part title.

That would catch 90% of them.

And limit the number of users you can follow in a day to 20, say (currently 120 I believe, courtesy of Smilllew). And stop notifying users by name when someone claps for an article, and at all when it's a clap for a comment.

Remove the incentives for some of the more obnoxious, distorting and misleading behaviour.