I hope so. It's worrying when I'm considered to be a right-wing voice on Medium. If the right wing voice is a left-leaning socialist Brit in the guise of a Penguin who likes to discuss and debate, then there may be a problem. I am seeing a lot more actual Conservatives than I used to, but they're still heavily outnumbered and that's a shame because the emergent problem on the internet if you remove the trolls is that the acceptability of dissent goes down and you get emerging echo chambers.

I'm hoping Medium doesn't become a shared platform for a collection of solipsistic bubbles but I do think that may emerge.

As I've said before, Medium has remained a bastion of hopefulness in a world comprised of polemic idiocy on social media. I have wonderful disagreements every day with people from all walks of life about plenty of different things - although I'm blocked more often than I'd like as a result I can see why the button exists. I would humbly suggest a six-monthly pop-up that says 'hey, these people are blocked/muted would you like to re-consider and re-engage?'. Something fun and friendly in your usual indomitable style. You guys know what you're doing and the platform is humming and buzzing because of it.

I thought I was late to the game when I joined in 2018. Turned out I was ahead of the curve, and what a curve it's turning into. Keep doing what you're doing - and the quality writers will come here. I don't social media because social media isn't social, it's broadcasting. Medium is social, because ideas and stories are exchanged here.

THIS is what it was supposed to be.