IMO this is not totally surprising.

If "mastodon banned" means people can't post their mastodon handles, then this might help.

If you're a journalist, or looking for a particular one @tchambers@indieweb.social has been maintaining a list of journalists on mastodon. If you're a journalist looking to get on that list, there's a link to a form right at the top.

It’s also IMO time for Medium to at least add mastodon to the list of ‘applications’ you can link to in profile/settings (and I think starting a for-Medium-authors mastodon instance would be a positive, both for Medium, and for expanding readership — but they clearly pay zero attention to any suggestions I make.)