Twitter Is Cracking Down On Tweets Reported As Stolen

This article originally appeared on 60 Second Social.

So you just shared a really good zinger on Twitter, was it your own original creation or did you see a joke elsewhere and decide to pinch it and share without giving credit? Well, if it is a joke that you stole from someone else and modified to look as your own then there is a chance that it could be deleted by Twitter as they are now cracking down on comedic fraud.

The social network is erasing and hiding tweets that are reported as stolen and referring to the original poster as the “copyright holder.” The change was first spotted by the account @plagiarismbad.

As content creators, we know how painful it can be when someone steals something that you have worked on, modifies it slightly and then claims it as their own creation. It doesn’t matter if it is a 140 character tweet or a 500 word post on a blog, plagiarism hurts. An ever growing problem that comedians experience is users stealing their jokes on Twitter and using them as their own.

Comedians, or indeed regular users who report other tweets as stolen can now expect the social network to take action. It is unclear if this is a copyright policy that has existed all along or if this is Twitter expanding on the current copyright policy to cover more content and give some more protection to the content creator. Either way, the company’s copyright policy is to give the alleged offender 10 days to respond should they wish to do so.

Twitter received more than 25,000 Digital Millennium Copyright Act notices last year however up to this point those requests are typically to do with pictures and videos in tweets as opposed to the actual text of a tweet.

For content creators worried about users stealing their content and reposting on the social network, it would seem that Twitter has your back.

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About The Author

Mark is the founder of 60 Second Social media where he provides social media news and digital marketing analysis. He has an Advanced Diploma in Psychology and a Diploma in Digital Marketing And Social Media. You can follow him on Twitter here. You can also follow 60 Second Social on Twitter here. Or you can drop Mark an email at, daltomark@me.com