Recently I read tweets about other people mentioning about stealing tweets. Although some of the cases are true. Some cases are not.
Some people I know are great at sharing tweets while the one retweeted it did not include the original source or took out some names.
One of the twitter etiquette is always credit the original poster or tweeps who tweet them. If you don’t then maybe you will get away with it once or twice but you will not get away with it forever. Somehow one day people will find out that you stole tweets from other tweeps or twitterers.
However i found out that some tweeps really steal tweets. I know this is simply because some tweets are unique and not those link tweets.
I found out about this when the original poster of the tweet contacted me and so I saw her tweet was used by a verified twitter account and people retweeted that tweet and thought that guy was a genius. No names will be mention in this post. I also did search to check and make sure there were no misunderstandings.
Example:
Original Tweet:
Copied and modified tweet
Simply copy and paste tweet 
As you noticed second tweet is identical with the first. Just the tweet has been modified.
I’m not so sure why some people prefer to copy tweets and do not bother crediting the original source of the tweet. Crediting the original source is one of the methods to build a relationship. When you retweet someone they will appreciate it and one day they might retweet you too.
However in some cases it is not exactly true. Some cases it might cause misunderstanding. Here are a few situations that may cause misunderstanding.
1. Tweet gets retweeted too many times and names are left out.
2. Tweets are too long (150 characters). The original twitterer wasn’t credited yet the one who RT-ed it got credited.
However, the fun part about twitter is sharing. Twitter is about engaging as well and not only posting interesting tweets. So credit the tweets and build relationship. That is the fun part about twitter. You do not have to “look” interesting. “BE” interesting by being YOU.
Picture source geekandpoke
I like your piece Aaron. Your points are well made. Thanks for the article.
And aha yes, if a person can’t fit all the (via) and RT names it makes sense to leave out a few. The important thing is that the information be dispersed which is what all the original RT’ers wanted in the first place. So then that particular action by a Tweeter has no curious trickerey attached. Sometimes they leave out the name though that brought it to their attention which is not so good 🙂
Even as an unverified account the grabbing my tweets and pawned off as someone elses has happened to me numerous times.
And I know for certain, because often when I only have time to check my feed but not comment I will save tweets into my Twitter Favorites. Sometimes I don’t RT those tweets for several days. Often someone else retweets my RT and excludes my name even if their is ample space to list @CTK1. Exactly how could that same tweet happen when a the tweet I saved is days old and they are RTing only 30 minutes after me? Of course they got it from my stream. Why not add my name? It makes little sense. I have also seen people take my own tweets, not RTs, change one word and tweet out as if it was their own thought on a subject/issue. Peculiar. I’m not sure what the mentality is behind this but I tend to unfollow people exhibiting this strange anti-social behavior.
Thank you dear.
It took me a while thinking if I should post this. Glad I did. =)
I do wonder why people don’t bother crediting their tweets and it helps them to build a better relationship.
I got mine copied as well but I didn’t do anything.
Hi Aaron,
I did retweet some people once and was told off for not crediting the originator. Had the book of Twitter rules thrown at me! LOL! Truth is I don’t even know who the originator was and was a bit peeved for being told off…
I am glad you raised the point about misunderstanding and just having fun and interactive. I personally do have tweets being ‘stolen’ but at the end of the day, I actually feel flattered and as long as the message / quotes get noticed, that is all I wanted. Well, as the quote goes “imitation is the best form of flattery” and no doubt this quote might have evolved some how, so as a disclaimer that I did not steal this quote, I am just quoting from memory!! LOL!
Thanks for posting and great post Aaron as usual!
It’s good you posted this… keep tweeting it out.
I keep forgetting to use my other account so my avatar faces the right way on sites that face the wrong way, haha
Hey there Aaron. I’m glad you posted this too. I was being vexxed by the very same issue just a few days ago. It is not very often that I become attached to something I tweet, but as a poet it does occasionally happen that I try to craft something to fit in the 140 character limit. In a couple instances, (three that I recall) not only wasn’t I given an RT, but my words were completely plagiarized. Then others RT’d the plagiarist and complimented him on his “original perspective”. Argghhhh!!!! A few days ago I discovered one of these, which I put out there over a year ago, is still be tweeted by a real estate agent in Florida, on his automatic API. I felt so violated, I wanted to drive down there, get my real estate license, steal one of his listings, pocket the commission and drive home again. But I don’t have a car.
GRRRRRR! It's so annoying to see people passing around your tweet without any credit to you in it !
Create your own tweets or just RT the darn thing. It's not so hard that you have to take from others !
I totally agree with you mate =)
Some people are too lazy to add the rt lol
“bad boy”
Your post is well written and I wanted to share valid arguments for both sides. I will admit I’m one of the people that complained (s) about the new RT option on Twitter. I still don't like it… but use it.
Sure we all know Twitter is about sharing, I get it. As you stated in some cases when someone does RT and there are too many people on the string editing is the option. With that said, I have a high RT ratio, I love passing info around, testing different products etc. However, reciprocity is not easy on Twitter and in my humble opinion people that do “steal” don't really give a rats ass about sharing it's about their ego, their value is passed into who they are on Twitter.
The other argument is you don't have anything worth RT'ing and that does something to the psyche. People do strange things, for ego.
Here are some ideas, and if you are like me you don’t want to cut & paste a RT. I use Hootsuite, and Power Twitter, they give you several options to work with from- Reply, RT, DM, etc. on the dashboard.
When it’s all said and done, I don’t really care about the RT’s on my links as I do about engaging. Don’t get me wrong, I like getting my stories RT’d, but I love when people actually take a moment and post a comment on the post. Sure it takes time, but more often than not it’s time well spent.
People have been stealing tweets for ages Aaron. I guess it makes a difference to those at the upper echolon, but not me. Steal my tweets and i won't say a thing. We all know who tweets what type of content at the end of the day.
Funny that i see people fighting all the time over stolen tweets (names obviously not mentioned) Get over it friends, it's only Twitter. Now if people where stealing your BLOG POSTS and not crediting you thats certainly another issue..
Good post though, glad you brought it here on your blog..
What's your take on a RT with a content edit? My tweet used a national company purely as an example: “use a company like XX as a resource”.
RT: “Use XX as your resource” and sent from the company themselves. So it seemed like I endorsed them solely rather than used them as an example. Unseemly or no?
(BTW my tweet was not personal but for my own business.)
This is an important issue on twitter and it runs into analytics. People shouldn't take others tweets directly from their streams. Most of us (advanced users & bloggers) create special (unique) links to see who and how many people are sharing what information. When you look at the results and see the same someone showing up all the time going about tweeting as if they were you; it's annoying, dishonest and messes up the results.
Happened to me too, pretty early on my Twitter days. Didn't know the best approach to deal with it so I just let it go. Also I figure such people are repeat offenders and will one day get caught.
(I peeked into my offender's timeline and had to laugh. He stole my stiff, grammatically cautious tweet – I was a Twitter newbie! – and it did look out of place within his own Twitter savvy updates.)
Kudos to those ppl who take pains to credit original tweeters though. I've come across some who do that (actually take time to short and abbreviate several words to be able to insert credit) and it's no surprise that they have their followers' loyalty and respect.
http://stormscriptures.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/what-should-be-done-to-people-that-steal-tweets/
http://stormscriptures.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/what-should-be-done-to-people-that-steal-tweets/ VOTE FOR A PENALTY THAT SHOULD BE PLACED ON PEOPLE THAT STEAL TWEETS
So how do you feel about a commercial radio station harvesting Twitter jokes for broadcast on air, without crediting the author, or Twitter as the source.
Jack FM is the station if you’re interested. The night time prerecorded broadcast, on their Bristol and Swindon frequencies at least.