Monday, August 14, 2017

DesireFeed.com

Come on, DesireFeed.com, who are you trying to fool?

Your article from August 11 is titled: "Bronx mom vows revenge as daughter, 11, recovers from horrific burns caused by prank gone wrong."

A NYDailyNews article from August 10 is titled: "Bronx mom vows revenge as daughter, 11, recovers from horrific burns caused by prank gone wrong."

Your opening:
A schoolgirl prank gone gruesomely wrong left an 11-year-old Bronx girl hospitalized with severe facial burns — and her rage-filled mom bent on revenge. 
Relatives of hospitalized Jamoneisha Merritt called Thursday for arrests in the scalding of the girl at her friend’s Bronx apartment.
The NY Daily News opening:
A schoolgirl prank gone gruesomely wrong left an 11-year-old Bronx girl hospitalized with severe facial burns — and her rage-filled mom bent on revenge. 
Relatives of hospitalized Jamoneisha Merritt called Thursday for arrests in the scalding of the girl at her friend’s Bronx apartment.
You're copying-and-pasting somebody else's content.  And you have ads from AdSense on your site, too?  That's just sketchy.

Friday, August 11, 2017

Dunham is a Democrat!

Back in November, a reporter named Michael Tracey caused controversy when he posted a screenshot of Lena Dunham's voter information.  Tracey took the info from https://voterlookup.elections.state.ny.us, and his screenshot showed Dunham was "Not enrolled in a party."  And if Dunham wasn't a registered Democrat, it raised questions about how she could have voted in the 2016 New York Democratic primary.

Dunham responded to the controversy on Twitter by saying: "I DID vote and am a registered Democrat. I used to be a registered independent before my 'political awakening.'"

It's a bit annoying how Lena Dunham couldn't state when, exactly, she registered as a Democrat.  I can tell you the exact day I registered to vote in New York:  It was February 13, 2015.

If Dunham was telling the truth, and she did register as a Democrat in time to vote during the Democratic primary, that means one of two things:

1.)  The information on the voter lookup website was more than six months out-of-date,

or:

2.)  The information on the voter lookup website was inaccurate.

Either of those scenarios strikes me as weird.  Shouldn't people be more concerned about the accuracy of their databases??

Anyway...I recently took another look at voterlookup.elections.state.ny.us, and lo and behold, Lena Dunham is now listed as a member of the Democratic party!  She did it!










This calls for a "Lena Dunham dancing" gif!


Thursday, August 10, 2017

Crocros.com

Come on, Crocros.com, who are you trying to fool?

Your article from August 10 is titled: "Motorcycle-riding execs become highway heroes."

A USA Today article from August 8 is titled: "Motorcycle-riding execs become highway heroes."

Your opening:
A group of music-industry executives helped yank 10 people from their cars just before fire raced through the scene of a multi-vehicle crash on I-24 in southern Illinois.  
A semi-truck had plowed full speed into cars that had stopped for construction on the highway near its junction with Interstate 57, causing a chain-reaction eight-car pileup shortly after noon CT Friday.
The opening from USA Today:
A group of music-industry executives helped yank 10 people from their cars just before fire raced through the scene of a multi-vehicle crash on I-24 in southern Illinois. 
A semi-truck had plowed full speed into cars that had stopped for construction on the highway near its junction with Interstate 57, causing a chain-reaction eight-car pileup shortly after noon CT Friday.
You're taking somebody else's content without giving proper credit.  And you've got a bunch of AdSense ads on your site, too?  That's just sketchy.

Thursday, August 3, 2017

HominumNews.com

Come on, HominumNews.com, who are you trying to fool?

Your article from August 2 is titled, "Erinn Hayes dies in Kevin Can Wait season two."

An article from IBTimes.com on August 2 is titled: "‘Kevin Can Wait’ Season 2 Spoilers: Erinn Hayes’ Donna Gable Will Die."

The opening of the HominumNews article:
“Kevin Can Wait” Season 2 will soon reveal that Donna Gable (Erinn Hayes) has died. 
While at the Television Critics Association summer press tour for CBS, senior executive vice president of programming Thom Sherman was asked to explain how Hayes’ departure from “Kevin Can Wait” will be written into the sitcom. “The character will have passed away,” he said. 
Sherman added that Season 2 will open with a slight time jump, but Kevin and Donna’s daughter, Kendra (Taylor Spreitler), will still be in the planning stages of her wedding.
The opening of the IBTimes article:
“Kevin Can Wait” Season 2 will soon reveal that Donna Gable (Erinn Hayes) has died. 
While at the Television Critics Association summer press tour for CBS, senior executive vice president of programming Thom Sherman was asked to explain how Hayes’ departure from “Kevin Can Wait” will be written into the sitcom. “The character will have passed away,” he said. 
Sherman added that Season 2 will open with a slight time jump, but Kevin and Donna’s daughter, Kendra (Taylor Spreitler), will still be in the planning stages of her wedding.
You're copying-and-pasting someone else's content and passing it off as your own.  And you've got ads from AdChoices and Amazon on your articles?  That's just sketchy.

Raising awareness of plagiarists

Yesterday I noticed a few plagiarized articles on Reddit.  One, from Waxra.com, reached the top spot in /r/music, and another, from Ervse.com, reached the top spot in /r/upliftingnews.  

One article had originally been published at SPIN, and the other had originally been published at the Courier-Journal.  I contacted the authors of the original articles to ask if they knew about the plagiarized versions, and both said they were unfamiliar with the plagiarizing websites. 

Ervse.com wound up removing their article from their website.  The article at Waxra.com is still up on their site, but a moderator at /r/music wrote the following message on the Reddit post:

Copyright Violation/Rehosted content from Spin Magazine - Author of article contacted /r/Music. - Rule 12.
For full details of this rule and all others, please refer to our wiki.If you have any questions or believe that there has been an error, you may PM the moderators.

Does whyme1239 have an alt?

I noted a while back there was a Redditor named /u/whyme1239 who was posting links to a pair of YouTube channels.  The channels were  called "Sports Valley" and "Recorder."

Well, there's another Redditor named /u/dkfjdr who also posted a pair of links to the "Recorder" channel.  Both videos were posted in the /r/ContagiousLaughter subreddit--one titled "Best man's pants fall down during ceremony" and one titled "BackFlip."

Furthemore, /u/dkfjdr posted a link to a YouTube channel called Leura Butt in the /r/space subreddit.  That video was titled "Could you imagine ever being more confused than a frog in zero gravity?"  The video made it to the top of /r/space and now has 215,000 views.