RE: TTR - Duplicitous Duplicator Dithers Deceitfully
There's the letter of the law, versus intent.
What you are discussing doesn't cover the pattern of duplicitous behavior. By pretending to be the official site, @zer0hedge has garnered an audience built largely on the belief that he was official.
And lets be frank, once someone subscribes or "follows" here, they don't often revisit their choices - leaving the content to populate their feed.
I think it is important to discuss identity theft and fraud in light of the evidence.
As I stated, @zer0hedge made a concerted effort to pass himself off as an official source before being forced incrementally to change his tactics. This still hasn't yielded the best result, but it does show his reluctance to present a truthful representation of who he is.
As one user has said - the mix between citation and original content varies, but seeing someone take other authors work, without permission - and make it 99.9% of their posts is clearly pushing the boundaries of what is expected and equitable.
Be mindful of the fact that most of the sources he is copying come from newsletters and other publications that are subscription-only content. The official Zerohedge site has relationships with these authors, which is why they are able to share it.
Encouraging someone to do the lowest-effort possible in contributing to the platform does nothing but ensure original content creators eventually abandon it - turning Steemit into yet another failed social experiment.
I'd say that alone is enough to push back hard against people who think copy-pasting equals "curation".
Well the issue of impersonation would be moot if it is clear he has always attributed the content as I believe he claims he did. I guess you are claiming otherwise. I certainly find his recent posts not that misleading and use of similar or copy-cat names are not uncommon here. Sure not using such a name and putting the disclaiming at the start of the article would be better. But for me it is mostly about does he have permission, and then if yes I couldn't care less - I might even subscribe to his feed then.
I have not gone back to the beginning of time to examine his early posts - it sounds like you have. Perhaps you could post links to or screenshots of his early postings which you say are especially egregious in their deceit about the account's identity? Thanks to the permanent nature of Steemit he would not be able to alter or delete them after one week.
Thanks.
PS. No word back from ZeroHedge. I'll report back if I hear anything.
If you navigate to my original post about the subject, there's a google-cache of his early postings. No disclaimer, no differentiation. Its the foundation upon which he's built an entire copy-paste empire.
Also, I take issue with "use of similar or copy-cat names are not uncommon here." Are you suggesting just because others do it, that it must be okay?
That kind of ethical lapse doesn't make sense in light of your other arguments.
You'll have to forgive me for missing that one link... I agree that 6 month ago post did not indicate he wasn't Zerohedge but hey at least he linked to the source.
However no matter how dodgy his past his and potentially misleading the name his current posts do seem to be far less misleading. Unless I wasn't really reading his posts at all it would be hard to miss the big disclaimer at all. I think we have to give everyone the chance to learn and reform. He can't really go back and fix the past since those old posts are immutable right (or can it be done with some low level API?)
So for me this is now mostly about copyright violation and what the original copyright holder(s) think(s).
As for copycat names - nope, definitely not saying doing that to mislead people is cool, more that rules are only good ones if you enforce them regularly in a uniform way. If you get lax about it or discriminate people will start to assume no one cares or rules only apply to certain people. Ergo people break laws because they see rich people get away with it. If there were bots and many more of us being vigilant over copycat names on Steemit I think people would get the message.
But it does appear the fake Zer0hedge has learned his lesson in that regard - at least AFAIC.
Note on the flip side some real people on Steemit have been hounded by down voting and robots targeting their profile because there is no reliable recognized way to prove identity here. Clearly Steemit could do better, maybe integrate support for a token or service that verifies identity. There could be a bot for new accounts telling people how to do that. It would make a clear impression on identify theft and provide a solution for identity assertion (@cheetah I'm looking at you)
It sounds like you or Patrice may already have contacted the real Zero Hedge before, did they really have no interest in this reposting account?
I've already stated the actions I've taken. They were not aware that he was riding on their coat-tails.
Whether they take action or not themselves is beyond the scope of this discussion.
That's where your whole argument fall short.
Since day 1.
Like the picture you posted yourself.
Where is the "concerted effort" to you? and concerted with who?
The prior google-cache link in my first article shows it clearly.
Naturally you've gone into concern-troll mode again, playing the innocent newbie "What, who me?".
Its almost like you forgot what is posted from one day to the next.
How very odd.
Shows what clearly ?
What do you mean by shows?