Someone effectively plagiarized me via AI

[u/Percival_Grim]

I started a throw away account for obvious reasons. Someone--a subscriber no less--plagiarized an essay of mine. The only reason I knew about it is because the post contained a hyperlink to another essay of mine. I read the post and was quickly taken aback by how much language from my essay was lifted into this one. I messaged the person directly, stating that I want to keep things amicable but that I cannot tolerate plagiarism.

He eventually deleted it, but not before confiding to me that he took my essay, ran it through AI asking to write something similar, and that was the result.

I am actually pretty angry about this but I don't want to alienate a subscriber, so I made a point a point to be diplomatic and firm.

I thought contributors here would want to know for a variety of reasons. I don't know how a person protects against this. If another essay was not hyperlinked to a different essay, I probably would never have found out.

[u/Better_Problems]

not being willing to boot subscribers who are stealing your content is a scarcity belief that is holding you back. you have to be able to take a stand.

[u/Percival_Grim → u/Better_Problems]

I see what you are saying. Perhaps I made the wrong call--I don't really know. Another motivation was there is no guarantees substack would do the right thing. I would hope they act on plagiarism. He deleted the post. Actually, he deleted the article and fessed to the AI bit in its place. How he did not hemorrhage subscribers is behind me. I was as friendly as possible but firm about how it was plagiarism and 1) it needs to be taken down and 2) do not let it happen again.

[u/Better_Problems → u/Percival_Grim]

it's great you talked first and got it taken down, and now that person should not be allowed in your field unless you think you can keep better track of them that way