TTR - Duplicitous Duplicator Dithers Deceitfully

Its been a little over a week since I highlighted @zer0hedge and his deceitful actions.

The response has been huge. Content providers rallied in support and personal messages have flooded in. Some expressed relief at the issue finally being put out into the open. Others advised caution, aware that a higher-level user could bully dissenters into silence.

I'm not here to make an easy buck - that's why I put effort into making original content.

If only @zer0hedge understood the underlying ethos of Steemit. He chose a more subtle, cunning attempt to game the reward pool instead.

@zer0hedge first began posting stories ripped from the official site (zerohedge.com), while avoiding people's questions as if he was the real Tyler Durden of Zerohedge.

Flying under the radar, reaping upvotes from confused users, @zer0hedge continued his duplicitous campaign. He allowed confusion over his identity to take hold and grow, like weeds poking through cracks in the sidewalk. He made no effort in the early days to clarify who he was.

The confusion was encouraged by his eerily similar user name - which only deviated from the original by inserting a "0" where a letter "o" should be. This one-character charade proved to be enough. Soon, minnows and dolphins were commenting and upvoting, all assuming it was an official source.

Enter user @patrice who saw the charade and made a post about the abuse - LINK (Note the use of the tag "steemit-abuse".)

Suddenly, a "disclaimer" appeared on @zer0hedge posts.

His deceitful strategy laid bare, he adopted the camouflage of the ignorant newbie. "I can't help that people think I'm zerohedge" he'd say, laughing through gritted teeth. "I just read the site and post things", along with "I drive people to the official site".

What @zer0hedge calls a service, I call plagiarism - or worse, identity theft. I'm not alone.

If everyone behaved like he did, Steemit would be filled to the brim with people misrepresenting themselves, parroting websites like a cabal of cut-and-pasting primates. This devalues the worth of the platform, each post a death by a thousand cuts.

With further action by myself and others, @zer0hedge adopted miniscule changes.

First he changed the logo - which he copied from the real site - by filling it in with yellow.

Then, he started to bold the author name up top - while still copying without permission.

There are ways to make amends, such as:

• Declining Reward Payout
• Openly stating at the top that the article is not his content
• Changing his user name and using an original logo - not a copy
• Adding in-depth commentary and analysis to the stories that are referenced, instead of presenting them as-is with zero effort

But until that happens, more posts will have to be made and attention brought to the issue.

Do your part, resteem and spread this to others - united in the purpose of making Steemit the absolute best that it can be.

Thank you, my followers and supporters - your comments have given me strength to continue this struggle against this bellicose bully.

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(Original post - Copy Pasting Leeches - LINK)