These Bizarre Ripoff 'News' Sites Have Turned Plagiarism Into A Business

Something odd caught my eye on Twitter the other day. Someone had tweeted a version of an article I’d written for HuffPost — complete with the same headline and image — but the link led to a different website: Newsbuzzr. It had been swapped out for “Jack,” a mononymous Newsbuzzr writer, and a busy one at that: “Jack” has churned out thousands of articles in recent months, doggedly covering everything from sports to foreign political crises to the latest celebrity gossip. It seemed clear that Newsbuzzr’s modus operandi was to rip and repost stories from legitimate media outlets after running them through some sort of automated synonym generator in a laughable attempt to sidestep outright plagiarism — a cheap scheme to leech content for ad revenue. When I tried to contact [email protected] — the only available email address — I got a bounce-back message informing me that no such account exists.. Newsbuzzr’s Instagram profile lists a disconnected phone number from central Florida.