Plagiarism on Steemit: @messwir - Why You Shouldn’t Plagiarize
Thanks to the good work of @v4vapid, I was notified about an article of mine being completely ripped off of my wall and slapped like a slab of meat onto @messwir’s wall.
You can see all of the really fantastic work that @v4vapid is doing by checking his comments. Absolutely fantastic job, my friend. I truly appreciate the work you’re doing here on Steemit.
Now… this account, @messwir, is taking the work of other people and posting it under their own name with little to no modification.
This is plagiarism, plain and simple, and while it might seem like a way to make an easy buck, it's going to DESTROY you on Steemit. So, don't be like this idiot, @messwir: learn from his example and make your own content.
I’ll make a comparison of the article I wrote vs the one @messwir stole like the dirty little rat he/she is.
First, the title.
MINE
@messwir removed the "Part 1", because - apparently - they're only interesting in stealing the first part. But @messwir left in the comma, like a damned idiot.
Next, the opening statement
MINE
I start with a nice, eye-catching, free-to-use image from the fantastic https://pixabay.com
@messwir
Starts with a totally incoherent sentence, yet uses the same image.
Hey, @messwir: what the hell is "The MKUltra program is an indisputable fact and blows about American history" supposed to mean? Maybe if you weren't so busy stealing other people's work, you'd have some time to work on your English skills by writing your own content.
Think about it.
The rest of their post is exactly like mine with a few occasional word changes that make absolutely no sense, like changing "toggling party disenfranchisement" to "changing the party's disappointment". Nice going.
Also, I looked at the source of @messwir's post image and found something interesting:
You can see in the image path that @messwir is using the eSteem app to post the content they stole from me. I'm officially letting @esteemapp know that this plagiarist is using their platform to post stolen content.
However, it's not just me, and it's not just the @esteemapp that's been abused.
This is a post that @messwir stole from Disobedient Media, and as you can see from its image path, they're using the @busy.org platform to post that stolen content.
So, @busy.org, be aware that @messwir is a flagrant plagiarist who is abusing your platform to steal content.
Why am I annoyed by this?
I’ll start here by saying that I don’t think it’s a big deal for people who use a platform like @zappl to do the equivalent of a “quote-tweet” or “retweet”, because the content of a micropost does not take an especially large amount of effort or time to compile and produce. And also, microposts have a much lower potential for earning any actual money.
However, when it comes to the articles that I write, I’m not ashamed to admit that I put hours into my work every day.
The post that @messwir stole from me and tried to make some quick money off of has a lot of research, as you can clearly see from the many links that I sourced, the quotes I found pertaining to the topic, and the video clips that were relevant to the post.
This takes time and energy to compile all of this and to assemble it into something that is my own, filtered through my own personal worldview, and presented to the audience that I’ve worked hard to build up.
@messwir is just copying my work and the work of others and posting it on their own wall like THEY are the one who put in all the work to do the research, analyze the material, filter out relevant sections of material that pertain to the topic, discover videos that reveal information about the topic and watch them to locate the timestamps where the most topical information lies.
All of this work that us actual content creators do here on Steemit is for the sake of our audience. It’s because I respect your time and attention that I work so hard on my posts and articles. It’s because I respect YOU that I try to provide my own authentic perspective on the subjects I choose to write about.
People like @messwir are just lazy assholes who can’t be bothered to have an opinion and have no respect for their audience (which, judging by the following-to-follower ratio, he/she only has because of a follow train scheme). They don’t respect Steemit or the Steem cryptocurrency; they abuse the awesome platforms that hard-working developers have made to make our experience here on Steemit better, like @esteemapp and @busy.org. And, most importantly, assholes like @messwir are abusing the content creators who spend time, effort, and resources to produce content that they steal, like a dirty rat in the night.
What do you think?
Plagiarism is an ever-increasing problem on Steemit, and I cannot be thankful enough for accounts like @v4vapid who do the real work to discover the thieves on the platform, expose them, and make sure they receive NO REWARDS for their immoral scummbagery.
How about you?
Has anyone ever stolen content from you on Steemit? By now, it’s happened to me probably a few dozen times, which means it’s probably happening twice as much as that and I just never find out about it.
Anyway, it’s nice that I’m able to turn someone stealing my content into my own content. That’s one thing that’s really cool about steemit :D
I recommend taking a gander at @messwir’s wall and seeing if your flagging power isn’t too rusty. He/she has been stealing A LOT of content from other users here and other writers and content creators from all over.
Go say hi.
I am finding it fascinating to watch how the usage of the Steemit platform is evolving. I am seeing a lot of negative developments at the moment, but solutions are also beginning to emerge. I spent some time looking at flagging wars, and now here we have another problem - plagiarism. The solution to both of these problems on a platform that has no central authority seems to be for vigilante actors, whether groups or individuals, to emerge. This could almost I think be seen as a test in microcosm for how (or whether) law and order could function in a stateless society.
For this sort of solution to work it will be necessary for ordinary users to fund the vigilantes I think, they will not operate for long if they are driven only by pure altruism. It is of course a valuable form of work, as such it should be rewarded, and furthermore such vigilantes could also face hostile flagging actions by the plagiarists who's operations they disrupt, so they will also need funds to counter such flagging attacks.
Will vigilante groups fall out and wage flagging wars against each other? In the film Gangs of New York (based loosely as I understand it on the real history of New York) rival fire services fought each other. An article on the subject at Smithsonian.com (I can't vouch for the accuracy):
In the Early 19th Century, Firefighters Fought Fires … and Each Other
It's an interesting process, to be sure. What we are witnessing is the development of an anarchic society. Behavior is not censored, but actions can have serious consequences.
It is, indeed, very interesting.
Hey man, thanks for the kind words. Sucks to have to flag minnows for plagiarizing hard work from people like yourself and @elizbethleavos at Disobedient Media.
I think the reason why these posts were not detected by @cheetahbot was because of the rewording you showed here in your post. I can't say 100% for certain but it would appear that the word substitutions were done to avoid detection.
From your own investigation, it looks like much of it is done using the mobile app. which is interesting.
I know a lot of these accounts originate from developing countries where earning $2 STEEM a week from a post can make a huge impact on people's lives. It's just very unfortunate that they're choosing to copy and paste other people's work in order to earn.
I originally became suspicious of some posts because they used the #deepdives tag but were not geared towards our current challenge. I'm hearing that this type of abuse is quite common across the platform with other tags as well. Certainly feels like a never ending game of whack-a-mole at times.
Cheers!
This, I totally understand.
But of course, it should not come at the expense of others.
@steemgh is a great example of how someone in such a circumstance can be if it from this amazing platform the right way: by building up his account with authentic content.
THAT is what I'd like to see. Not this plagiarism BS. That's just going to get you nowhere… I wish people understood that.
Anyway, I want to thank you again for the work you've done. If not for you I would never have known about this!! 🤗
Good work v4vapid. The poor people you describe could help with such necessary vigilante work, that would be one useful thing they could do instead of plagiarizing the hard work of others. If the platform becomes more successful surely there will be an ever growing amount of work such as this to do. Many other problems are arising, such as flagging wars that I mention above. All problems that could be turned into business opportunities.
Anyone who bothers to put up even a quick sloppy post on STEEMIT can tell when someone who has put up a well written & thought out post- TAKES A LOT OF LOT OF TIME.
So yes, you have every right to point this out. It is theft & an insult.