Twitter to crack down on ‘copypasta’ tweets by limiting their visibility

‘Copypasta’ tweets are tweets with identical words and phrasing that have been copy-pasted without any modifications from the source. This is Twitter’s way of cracking down on spam on the platform.

Twitter Comms explained via a tweet that they had seen an increase in ‘copypasta’ which is an attempt by many accounts to copy, paste and tweet the same phrase. (Pixabay)

Twitter is going to hide ‘copypasta' tweets as it cracks down on spam on the platform. ‘Copypasta' tweets are those tweets that have been copied and pasted without any modifications from the source text.

Twitter Comms explained via a tweet that they had seen an increase in ‘copypasta' which is an attempt by many accounts to copy, paste and tweet the same phrase. If the platform spots behaviour like this they may limit the visibility of those tweets, Twitter Comms added.

The platform has recently updated its censorship policy to include these ‘copypasta' tweets. ‘Copypasta' is online slang for text that has been duplicated and shared widely across forums on websites.

We've seen an increase in ‘copypasta,' an attempt by many accounts to copy, paste, and Tweet the same phrase. 🍝🔁

When we see this behavior, we may limit the visibility of the Tweets. https://t.co/OCVudJPXPm

— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) August 27, 2020

Twitter has an in-built shortcut on the mobile app (both iOS and Android) that lets users copy text off a tweet by long-pressing on the tweet. Recently it introduced the ‘Retweet with quote' feature that is basically the same as ‘Retweet with comment' feature.

Copypasta tweets have been used for wide-scale spamming and malicious campaigns, particularly for political propaganda and that is what Twitter wants to crack down on. And not just automated bot accounts, but real users are also recruited for these campaigns online.

Copied tweets are also a problem for creators who make original tweets and intellectual properties as those end up getting plagiarised and miss out on the likes and traffic that they actually deserve.

Twitter usually overlays violating tweets, any violating tweet, with a warning and only when users click on it can they see the whole tweet. The platform has not mentioned how they will be limiting the visibility of these copypasta tweets or if they are are going to show these tweets with warnings.

Twitter has taken action on these copy-pasted tweets in the past but this is the first time that it has announced a definite policy. CEO Jack Dorsey had mentioned in an interview with Wired that Twitter might also begin to track how many times a link in a tweet has been copied.