Twitter deleting joke copycats due to copyrights

Twitter is finally deleting Twitter users that try to grow followings just by copying jokes. It’s been something people have been doing since Twitter started, but the social network is finally doing something about it.

A plagiarism watchdog Twitter user called @PlagiarismIsBad first noticed this over the weekend, posting a screenshot of tweets that had previously copied the joke, “Saw someone spill their high end juice cleanse all over the sidewalk and now I know god is on my side.” After the tweets were deleted, Twitter changed the message to read “This tweet has been withheld in response to a report from the copyright holder.”

According to The Verge, the original joke was written by Los Angeles-based freelance writer Olga Lexell. She confirmed on Twitter that she had asked the social network to have the copycats removed.

“I simply explained to Twitter that as a freelance writer I make my living writing jokes (and I use some of my tweets to test out jokes in my other writing),” Lexell wrote. “I then explained that as such, the jokes are my intellectual property, and that the users in question did not have my permission to repost them without giving me credit.”

This wasn’t the first time Twitter pulled plagiarists. Lexell told The Verge that she had made other requests in the past and Twitter complied as well.

Any Twitter user can report copyright infringement using this form. Plagiarism Is Bad also set up a list of known spam accounts that just re-post jokes without attribution.

image from Twitter