Here at Social Media Today LLC, which owns and operates this site, nothing is more important than the integrity of the material that we publish. In particular, we have a zero tolerance policy where plagiarism is concerned. Passing off another writer’s work as your own is theft, pure and simple. Plagiarism violates Social Media Today’s Terms of Use and represents a serious breach of the trust that should always prevail among members of an intellectual community.
We recognize that blogging is a heavily referential medium and that bloggers frequently cite and quote from each other’s work. Such citations are generally protected under the legal doctrine of fair use. However, we will delete any post that crosses the line from fair use to plagiarism, at our sole discretion. Authors who knowingly submit plagiarized work may be banned from our communities.
It recently came to our attention that a blogger on one of the Social Media Today sites had plagiarized significant portions of several posts. All the blogger’s posts have been removed from our system, and the blogger has been banned from posting content on any Social Media Today site for a period of six months.
This issue came to our attention because two authors complained that the blogger had copied their work without permission or attribution. The two authors voiced their complaints by posting comments to the blogger’s most recent post.
Which raises an important point: While we work hard to maintain high editorial standards on our sites, we don’t have the resources to check every post for originality. In the spirit of the blogosphere, we rely on our members to correct each other’s mistakes. In this case the system worked, but we ask all of you to speak up should you find issues with the accuracy or originality of any post on our sites.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me directly if you have any questions about Social Media Today’s editorial policies.
Sincerely,
Richard
