With technology advancement, information is within easy reach. The world wide web is rich of content, easy to find through different search engines.

Copy/Paste is a great combination don't you think? Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V are my friends when I'm researching, making notes or writing technical paper.

Very helpful, very efficient. But on the blockchain, when irresponsibly done, is detrimental.

Points To Cover

• What is copy/paste abuse on the blockchain
• How to find copy/paste without following Cheetah

What Is This Abuse? Part 2

For my second anti-abuse contribution, I'm tackling one of the laziest type of abuse - Copy/Paste.

Copy/Paste is one step closer to plagiarism. It is copied content with attribution to the source. And when you read the post, it has zero to very little original content.

I said lazy work. Copy someone's blog, paste it on an editor, type in the source and post. Now it's on the blockchain adding zero value. It adds to the junk already there.

Let's see how else copy/paste is defined.

From Utopian antiabuse guidelines

Copy/paste - Copying material from any source that is not their original work with attribution to original creator without additional original content added

From Steem Cleaners

Copy & Paste – Posts include source and no original content

I'm not that far off on my definition. That's good, that means we're on the same page. If you define it otherwise, what would you call it?

How To Detect Copy/Paste

This is a simple example of how I find this type of abuse.

When you keep sniffing the blockchain, you'll get a good feel of where to start looking.

Troll the New section, ignore Trending

Scroll through the new post submissions. We're looking for some generic information one can easily grab from the web.

Remember, it's lazy work. Think about what a lazy person would do for easy rewards. What tags or niche are the most popular?

Look at that screenshot for a moment. [long pause here, examines the screenshot]

I have a gut feeling about the first and last post. After fighting abuse, you might get gut feelings too.

The Korean review I'll skip for obvious reasons. I'll also skip the "Sunny day" post since I'm not looking for image plagiarism.

Check the tags and dig in

Note what tags were used on the first and last posts? Yes, "crypto" and "cryptocurrency". Let's check these posts one at a time, starting with the Daily market report.

Uh oh, I think I've seen this chart before. It looks familiar.

Scrolling down at the bottom of the post, here we see:

Bingo! Go to CoinMarketCap.com and check this data. The post is now 32 minutes old with no rewards.

Sure enough, the post is matching the format of CoinMarketCap's homepage, only showing the first four columns.

The only reason to do this is because you're lazy. You think no one cares. The Steem blockchain is just there for you to take what you want. -- WRONG

This is a classic example of copy/paste. No original content written by the account. One can go to the Coinmarketcap website directly for this information.

Check Steemit Account History

Looking deeper into the previous posts of this account, we can see multiple instances of copy/paste posts.

An hour passed, the post we're investigating is now at $2.58.

Let's report this to Steem Cleaners.

• Fill out your Steemit account name or write steemcleaners for anonymity
• Post URL will be the copy/paste post's link
• Details - Copied data from coinmarketcap, no other original content
• Supporting link - coinmarketcap.com
• Abuse Type - Copy/Paste
• Click Report Abuse

Let's do the same thing for that first post I was eyeing.

Let's open that link and see the post.

Oh boy, only a screen shot from somewhere. There are only 3 sentences.

Notice the number of upvotes. I'll check that later. This smells like vote farming.

Looking at all the posts, it's another oh boy. This is flag-able and reportable.

This is not copy/paste. More like spam and vote farming.

Tagging @pjau, @patrice, @guiltyparties. I found another vote farm.

Scouting for abuse on the New page gave us 2 easy leads.

Do they add any value to you?

Summary

Thanks for abuse hunting with me. I hope you try this simple technique of finding abuse. The blockchain is full of them and you'll never run out of things to report to Steem Cleaners.

Copy/paste is a good tool in general. But in the wrong hands, it is a nuisance to those who create original content.

Resources

Cheetah bot explained
-- This is a good read on why plagiarism and copy/paste types of abuse are bad for the platform.
Copy/pasting on Steemit
-- This is a 2-yr old post. It's the account's first post and has a negative concept of Steemit due to abuse.

Previous Series

If you missed the first part of this series, check it out below:

• Spam: Eat it or clean it up with me

Next on "What is This Abuse" Series

• Plagiarism: Your Hard Work, My Gain
• Scam: Your Identity and Funds Aren't Safe