Twitter has begun clamping down on stolen jokes and is now deleting Tweets that contain material taken from other people. This doesn’t include retweets, but rather people who literally steal amusing tweets for their own use.
The new policy was noticed last Saturday, when Twitter user @plagiarismisbad noticed that some Tweets were being hidden for copyright infringement. Freelance writer Olga Lexell admits that she was the one to have started asking Twitter to take down the offending Tweets. She reasoned that Twitter is a testing ground for jokes, and she would rather not have people stealing her material and claiming it for their own.
BREAKING NEWS: Twitter is hiding tweets reported stolen. And it's referring to the author as a "copyright holder" pic.twitter.com/DkteWMZ7zg
— Plagiarism Is Bad (@PlagiarismBad) July 25, 2015
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There is some concern that this could set a new precedent for the removal of Tweets for a variety of reasons. However, it has been noted that Twitter does take time to examine the validity of each request that comes its way. Companies have attempted to have Tweets criticising their products in the past; all of which have failed.
However, this is the first in what could be more writers defending their tweets and comments appearing on the micro-blogging site. On a positive note, it could easily force people to put more work into being genuinely funny; instead of simply stealing jokes from talented people.
[Source: Engadget]
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