We spend most of our time on social media, either we’re scrolling our news feed or writing down our thoughts and sharing posts. But have you ever seen the same post by different people and wondered “Who wrote that first?”
It became so popular for people to take a copy of any written post and post it as their own. They either claim it’s theirs or simply write “Copied”.
In the writers’ and journalists’ world, this is called plagiarism. Not mentioning the original source or author of something is actually considered illegal. In the academic field, a person could be sued or fail their masters because they plagiarized.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t exist on social media.
Is Social Media Creating A Plagiarism Problem?
Many people actually complain about how their words are always being stolen by random strangers. This is social media plagiarism.
This is one of the problems that social media had created; it made stealing easy! People don’t care about social media plagiarism and anyone can simply take any post and make it theirs. Those people sometimes even take credit for it! But just because some people don’t care about social media plagiarism, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
When no one is held accountable for plagiarism on social media, it simply spreads, and that’s what has been happening for a long time now. If you noticed how many times a post was stolen by so many people, you would realize that this is a problem.
Why People Steal Other People’s Work?
There are 2 reasons that can be a motive for people to steal or to simply not care.
The first one is how people care too much about the number of likes and shares; they think that this is the way to be famous. It became a target for almost everyone to gain a huge amount of likes; you can even notice this on some Facebook groups.
So, when a person sees something goes viral, they take it and post it as their own hoping they’d get the same attention.
The second reason is that no one is held accountable. There’s no plagiarism police on the internet, you can copy whatever you want, pretend it’s yours and no one will know who’s the original owner of this idea.
This all leads to the following point, lack of credibility.
Lack of Credibility
People who don’t know what plagiarism is, consider it normal to take someone’s words and post them as their own, which makes it ok for others. There was no credibility. Some people think that it’s ok to plagiarize someone because they’re not famous.
The wrong person is taking credit for someone else’s effort and talent and there’s no way to know who’s the original writer. So, here’s the thing, if someone’s words were too good to be quoted, then they are worth mentioning.
Is It Safe to Put Your Work on Social Media? And How to Avoid Being Plagiarized
Some people consider social media platforms are the place to be heard.
Over the years we have seen many Facebook pages, Tumblr, and even Twitter are famous for their quotes; these pages were created by people who want to be heard. So, if you want to do the same, you can but you have to make sure your name is included in your work.
For example, if you will write something and attach a design to it, make sure the design has your name on it. Also, link your words to your design so it’s impossible for someone to take just one of them. This is how you can try avoiding being plagiarized.
Also, if you’re someone who wants to share a quote that someone wrote, the best way is to share the post or to mention this person so they take the credit.
Remember, it may not be illegal to plagiarize on social media but it’s still unethical.
