Online Authorship: Understanding Social Media Plagiarism

Reflections on a personal experience

Recently, I found myself impacted by a situation involving online authorship issues. It seems to have stemmed from a place of carelessness and a lack of understanding rather than any intentional wrongdoing. At least, that’s the perspective I’ve chosen to take.

The irony is that this is a basic issue in digital literacy, a field I have been deeply involved in for the last two years culminating in a book I am currently writing for Delta Publishing. Therefore, besides my initial shock and indignation, it provided me with an opportunity to reflect on it in a personal way, and understand its implications and the urgency to cultivate digital citizenship more deeply. It is absolutely crucial to encourage open discussions about the significance of respecting others' work in order to, hopefully, foster a more respectful online environment for all.

Before delving into the personal anecdote, I recommend taking a minute to view the image below (created with AI on my Wix site here) and connecting it to a digital literacy example of authorship. What do you make out of this image?

Creating, sharing or replicating posts? Whose post is this?

My prompt

A woman on the left thoughtfully creates an original post, taking down hand-written notes, dedicating time and reflection to this.

Another woman on the right simply replicates it with a few clicks, ignoring credit and permission.

The personal incident

(The exact details are blurred or changed, and no names are given to protect the identity of those involved. This is another fundamental practice in digital literacy, which is safeguarding people’s privacy.)

After I had finished managing a complex project, executing nearly all the connected actions with contributions from several professionals. Following a period of intense work, and as is my custom, I took the time to reflect and write a heartfelt personal post of pride and gratitude on my personal social media account. It was a sincere message, celebrating each contributor and proudly marking a personal professional milestone achieved through very hard work. I scheduled it to post while I was traveling abroad, ensuring I would have devoted the time it deserved before the project's official announcement days later.

The morning after my post was published, while I was having breakfast overseas, I was shocked to see an identical post, word for word, appearing under the name of the person who led all related projects. I could not believe my eyes at first. This person had simply copied my entire first-person narrative and published it as their own!

I immediately brought this to their attention as I believed that the person had no malicious intentions but had just hurriedly copied the text recklessly in order to post something themselves as quickly as possible, disregarding the personal nature of this reflective post and apparently unaware of the nature of the basic ethical issue of authorship in the digital space. 

The flawed response

However, I was in for an even greater shock when I noticed that they had done none of the possible actions expected to be taken in such a case: 

1. Removing the post

2. Writing an original message

3. Sharing my post with clear attribution (e.g., using the "Share" function, or explicitly starting with: "Susana wrote the following...").

Instead, the leader made superficial edits. First, they ironically inserted a line thanking me next to the one where I had originally thanked them (both in the first person)! Later, when I again explained why this was wrong, they changed the pronouns, making it look as if the text had been written on behalf of the larger team, including people involved in other projects in the organization.

My personal reflective post was still fundamentally the same. Yet, by changing the pronouns and posting this on the team’s professional page, the leader passed off my unique, sincere reflection as their own official message.

Why can this incident be labelled as social media plagiarism?

Social media plagiarism is a digital extension of traditional plagiarism as it is an ethical violation of an author's rights. Sharing someone’s social media post without obtaining their permission and not crediting them for the original content is a form of plagiarism. This can include reposting images, videos, or written content without acknowledging the original creator (Eide, 2025, October 8).

As Proofreading Services (2025) states:, "If you copy someone else’s content, change a few words, and then post it as your own, you are plagiarizing their work. You already know this would be a clear-cut case of plagiarism in an academic paper, and it’s no different on social media."

In fact, it is a key ethical issue addressed Digital etiquette strives to prevent. Digital etiquette, also known as Netiquette, is a broader term and refers to the set of rules and behaviors for polite, respectful, and responsible communication and interaction online. It covers aspects like respecting others, using appropriate language, and protecting privacy while interacting on the Internet. It is basically about how to behave well and ethically in digital environments, including social media, emails, forums, and more.

Methods to honor online authorship

Becoming the digital citizens we preach as educators

This story is a crucial reminder: we cannot just talk about digital literacy; we must acquire digital literacy skills ourselves and be able to model them.

Content posted on a personal account under one's own name, especially a sincere reflection or expression of gratitude for generous contributions resulting from interpersonal relationships, must not be treated as public domain material.

Let's respect one another and avoid being thoughtless posters on social media!

Let's not just talk about digital literacy and responsible use of technology. Let's be a living example! But let's understand what this truly means first!

Only by growing as digital citizens ourselves will we be able to teach our students to adopt these values and become responsible digital citizens in a content-saturated world.

Classroom resources

The following video could be used with students as part of a lesson devoted to this issue. Can you think of any ideas for a lesson plan including it?

References

Eide, K. (2025, October 8). Plagiarism on social media: How to detect and avoid it. PapersOwl. https://www.papersowl.com/blog/plagiarism-on-social-media-how-to-detect-and-avoid-it

Proofreading Services. (2025). The nuances of social media plagiarism: An overview for academics. ProofreadingServices.com. https://www.proofreadingservices.com/pages/the-nuances-of-social-media-plagiarism-an-overview-for-academic

© 2025 Susana Galante. All Rights Reserved.