Friday, July 3, 2015

AN OPEN LETTER TO MARK ZUCKERBERG



AN OPEN LETTER TO MARK ZUCKERBERG

Dear Mark Zuckerberg,

I am very happy that Facebook and Whatsapp are connecting millions and bringing smiles on the face of many.

We are able to share our little moments of joy and proclaim to the world that we are the happiest creatures around. Pages by magazines, institutions and individuals bring us tons of information that makes us aware of the world around us. I confess, I am addicted to Facebook and am a reluctant member of Whatsapp as well.

But Sir, as a writer, I am troubled and worried about the rampant act of plagiarism that exists on Facebook and Whatsapp . Anybody can copy and paste our articles or quotes on their walls without our permission. And in the case that we report it to Facebook, they respond to us kindly saying that 'the particular post doesn’t violate their community standards.'

Whatsapp doesn’t have any such options at all! So what can we writers do?

Please Sir, we spend time and energy to create our articles and then someone copy it blatantly and share it without our consent. Is it fair?

 People are copying our articles from our blogs or web magazines and passing it off as theirs, to attain their two-minutes of fame on Facebook or  Whatsapp.

A recent article of mine was copied by many from the womensweb page where I had shared it and it went viral on Whatsapp. From there, it was copied onto Facebook where it again went viral. Nowhere was I mentioned as the writer of the post.

Can’t Facebook, the most powerful media tool in the world, create an option to report plagiarism? I guess writers around the world would be thankful to you if you put such an option in your ‘report this post’ section in any post. If there is such an option, we can share the original link to the post and then Facebook can take down the post, if proven right.

Can we expect something similar on Whatsapp as well?

I request all my writer friends around the world to share this post because I know all of you would want such an option to exist on this popular and powerful media tool.

Please writers and friends, I request you to share this post so that we can use Facebook without any worry.

Thank you.
A Writer
Preethi Venugopala


8 comments:

  1. I agree with you, Preethi. Most of the times FB don't see anything wrong with phishing, violation of creative works and hatred on their page. I've put so many complaints and they come up with lame response.

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    1. Thank you Vishal. It is very disheartening to any writer when their work is plagiarized. Facebook need to change their policies about Plagiarized content.

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  2. Shared on FB and Twitter. Am with you!!

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  3. True. If somehow they can stop it, that would be a great benefit for all of us.

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  4. Interesting predicament. I know it's very annoying not to be acknowledged as the author of one's work.

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  5. Done Preethi, I hope they take this up seriously.

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  6. Quite interesting; and I second you !

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