During my brief holiday break from blogging, I didn’t expect an influx of comments on Candy’s Monsters. So when I saw a comment “pending moderation” I was curious. It turned out to be SPAM, but not ordinary spam. It was EVIL BLOGGER SPAM.
It doesn’t surprise me when I get an offer to “increase traffic to my site” by less-than-upfront means. Like the offers for 10,000 Twitter followers (robots one & all), I usually delete these “helpful” comments immediately. But something about this one caught my eye and the more I thought about it the more EVIL it became.
Here it is verbatim: Hi webmaster i see you put a lot of work in your blog, i know how to make your blogging easier, do you know that you can copy any article from any site, make it 100% unique and pass copyscape test? For more details, just search in google – rewriter creates an unique article in a minute.
After this mysterious source “recognizes” the effort I put into blogging, he (the name was Roberto) offers to make my life easier by giving me the means to steal content and then use a program that makes it appear to be original/unique. He’s really saying, “Here’s a cheap and easy way to cheat.”
In my book, that’s evil.
I know that some college kids buy term papers and that plagiarism is a plague that undermines academia. I also know that creating and sharing original content is a pleasure and I can’t imagine cheating you, or myself, by purchasing one-size-fits-all blog posts or by using a writing algorithm that “fixes” borrowed content so it appears to be new.
Sorry Roberto! You message has been deleted. Don’t spam me again.
On a happier note, today is POE’s birthday. Let’s celebrate this iconic author and his fabulous stories!
Wow, this is scary. Someone making a business of helping people steal, that is evil!
The Internet is home to nefarious folks of all stripes. Just about every good, positive, helpful, APP or program can be turned for the bad. I’m continually amazed at the way people think. It’s as if stealing anything — money, stuff, ideas — is their main objective. It may be all they think about.
On a positive note, I think readers will likely feel suspicious (or simply bored) by canned content. Just as I’ve gotten bored by most of the aggregated blog sites. I scan them for links, sometimes, but only if they have a true expertise in their area. Opening a can of words and spilling them on our blog is boring!
Ugh. I just don’t get it. Why would anyone bother? I mean,honestly? If you were to copy some very famous, very popular blog post then messing with it would destroy whatever it was that made it so popular in the first place. Plus how low in self esteem would you have to be :/
I didn’t even think of that aspect. It’s just so weird. Low self esteem is the disreputable icing on a nasty cake!
It’s as bad as those that steal books by re-publishing them under a different cover and with a new name on them. If people want to be authors they should write books, not steal them.
xxx Huge Hugs Candy xxx
That’s a scam I’ve never heard about!
Given the meager amounts most authors make on their books, I’m surprised at the re-publishing gambit. Well, you’ve given me something else to worry about … AND maybe to write about!!! That’s a truly evil idea. Thanks! It may wind up in a short story one day.
Ha! The lengths people will go to make stolen content passable amazes and stupefies me at the same time. Many a day I have sat with a student, principal, and parents in a conference over a plagiarized paper. Why not just write your own stuff is what I always asked because the effort you put into passing this off as your own probably took just as much work.
All too true!
And by doing your own work, or term paper, or blog post, etc. you actually LEARN SOMETHING!
Wow… what a concept.