Excuse Me! That is NOT Yours! Put it Down!

Yesterday a friend and fellow Vocal creator saw that a deeply personal story of theirs, one that was a recent Top Story and one filled with their most vulnerable thoughts, was plagiarized and reposted on Vocal. Although they had already reported it, I went and did so, too, in solidarity.

Then; wait a minute. Hey!

Long story short: five hours later (I took time out for dinner and goodnight kisses with my hubby), 25 of the plagiarist's 52 stories were positively traced back to 21 Vocal creators and 3 Medium writers. (Yes, that only equals 24; one of the Vocal creators had two of their stories plagiarized.)

Of the other 27 stories, I identified most as AI generated (and unattributed as such, which is against Vocal policy), and I didn't bother with the computer programming one because: UGH on computer programming, I was tired and didn't care.

Oh- and one of the creators that was plagiarized? Why- Vocal itself, for its announcement of the Past Life Winners Challenge. (I think that is, pardon the indelicacy: pretty ballsy.) See that, in the upper right corner? Looks familiar, doesn't it?

What Did I Do About It?

Frankly- I was incensed. And then I go to work. I spent several hours on my phone (Pro Tip: use a computer, it's easier on the thumbs) checking the content this Vocal member (I will not refer to them as a creator) had posted, reporting each story one by one, alerting the actual author, and linking the actual original content on the fraud with a comment that it had been reported.

Why did I do that? Why did I do any of that? Because I am a driven person when I am angry. And I was ANGRY. (This is the persona my husband refers to as The Dragon Lady. After a brief discussion about my outrage, he fell peacefully to sleep as I kept swiping, copying, pasting, and mumbling beside him.)

And, also, because it was as addictive as playing WORDLE. Will THIS one be plagiarized? How about... no- that's AI. How about... holy crap; that's one Vocal wrote... mutter mutter.

What Can YOU Do About It?

Let me state this disclaimer right now: You shouldn't have to do anything about it.

Let me say it again, in caps: YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. Vocal should make sure this doesn't happen, and I do believe they are trying.

However- since they couldn't stop their own content from being stolen and reposted, I don't think they are as close to a solution as they should be. So...

Here is how I checked all of those stories.

1. Copy part of the suspected content. Usually I use the first paragraph, but sometimes I'll move down a few if the beginning looks too formulaic.
2. Going to the search engine of your choice (I used Google), paste the content into the search bar, using quotation marks before and after the content that you've pasted.
3. Hit Enter or Search or Go. (Whatever applies)
4. Check out the results. Often the plagiarized content comes up first.
5. If ONLY the plagiarized content appears, scroll down in the search results to see if 'more listings available if similar results are included', and click on that. The point of this is that we WANT similar results to be included!

Sometimes you get lucky, TBH. Like in the image below. I chuckled when I saw that Tom Baker, the actual creator of the content could be seen in the opening text of the plagiarized post. I checked it anyways. Yup. BTW- you should check out Tom's reviews and opinion pieces!

What I Will Do, and My Suggestion for YOU for Now

I am going to run a check on any of my Top Stories. I suggest you do the same for your own Top Stories. Then I am going to run a check on all of my posted content going forward.

I'm going to run a check a week out from the original pub date and then each week out going forward for a month. Then periodically for each Top Story.

Should I have to do this? No. Will I? Yes.

Heck- That's Not Even All

As I was checking to see if the plagiarist had been banned from Vocal this morning ({Update: just checked at 12:41 on 9/6/23 and this profile has been deleted. Thanks Vocal!} spoiler alert: not yet, but to be fair the Vocal team had a LOT of reports to go through today), I found another profile that had stolen Creator content... including one of mine.

THIS one, who joined Vocal within the past week: grabbed Top Stories, tweaked the titles just a tad, and ran the content through AI.... but I recognized my most recent Top Story just the way Mother Combs recognized hers. (My mangled intellectual property is in the upper left corner, Mother Combs is in the lower right.) Those of you that have been following my Guide to Identifying AI Content will recognize the upper right piece as AI generated; you will see it in the way the location is described. Yes- all of these were also reported.

{Update: 9/6/23 @1:14. The scraped and pasted story the profile below boosted from me has been deleted, so Vocal is moving forward with the reports on the profile shown below. Thank you Vocal.}

I wish I could tell you that I have an answer to finding these. But, short of EVERYONE reading EVERY Latest Stories every day, I don't. Of course, you could do that. But you'd likely want to be paid. You know, like an employee, like a Vocal employee perhaps.....?

Just a suggestion.

~~~~~

Here's the Intro to my Guide to Identifying AI generated content by sight- not using any program. You Can Find It! Each subsequent chapter links as you read them, and I have four more chapters coming. (I had to put off the one planned today because I wanted to write this)

For those of you on Facebook: I will record myself following these steps and share it in my Facebook group: The Medium Writers and Vocal Creators Support Group (aka 'Support'). Give me a day or so, though, OK? I have to do my day-job now.....

I hope you leave a comment and let me know: Is my explanation clear? Do these jeans make my butt look too big? What should I have for dinner tonight? Am I truly The Dragon Lady?