Twitter has introduced a new policy that is designed to target “identical or near-identical content tweeted by an individual account or many accounts” in an effort to combat spam and duplicative tweets. Copypasta (a reference to copying and pasting text) is a derogatory term that refers to any data that has been copied and spread widely online. On Twitter, this can refer to any block of text and / or image that has been copied and pasted. Whilst this form of duplicate content can be a great way for spreading a message, according to Twitter, it can be “repetitive, spammy, and disruptive to people’s experience on the platform, and – most importantly – it can also be used to artificially amplify content, suppress information or manipulate Twitter’s Trends, Top Search results and conversations across the platform.” What exactly is considered as Copypasta on Twitter? Twitter now limits the visibility of duplicative tweets and has recently announced what it considers to be a violation of their policy and the consequences this will entail. Examples of behaviour for which Twitter will start limiting visibility in line with this policy include “identical or near-identical content tweeted by an individual account or several accounts”, as well as any duplicate or copy-pasted tweet that the social media platform thinks will “disrupt the experience of others”. If, however, you retweet existing content using the retweet feature, or tweet / copy and paste existing content “with your own unique content, commentary, or reaction, or explicitly quoting the copied content”, then Twitter won’t limit its visibility. What happens if your tweet has limited visibility? If Twitter deems a tweet to be in violation of its rules, it will limit its visibility on the platform. This can include: removing it from its Top Search results and on Trends,not recommending it on the timelines of users who don’t follow the account that sent the tweet,downranking the tweet in replies, andomitting the tweet and / or accounts from email or in-product recommendations. How to mitigate against Twitter’s new duplicate tweets policy To mitigate against this new policy, our team of superstar social media managers have recommended taking the following actions: Instead of one identical tweet for everyone there can be many targets and tweets, which will make it less likely to be flagged. For example, you can come up with several core draft tweets and then change a few words in each of them but with the same meaning.If you are running any mass coordinated Twitter activity, make sure you emphasise to your supporters that they add on bespoke messages before or after a tweet to make it unique. For example, even adding a simple “I love this” or “This is so great!” before or after the standard message will help ensure the tweet doesn’t get flagged as copypasta. Your social media team may do a bit more work in advance but for the audience it’s the same experience, so it is less likely to be flagged by Twitter’s automated monitoring as being a duplicate copypasta tweet. Severe violations of Twitter’s copypasta policy While duplicative content on its own will not automatically result in a removal or account suspension, they will however be reviewed and, according to Twitter, “are subject to review and enforcement under [its] platform manipulation and spam policy and any other Twitter Rules violations.” Any Twitter user can simply use the Report Tweet option to report any rule breaches as “suspicious or spam like”, including those that they consider to be falling under Twitter’s new Copypasta policy. Further reading on Twitter’s duplicate content policy Copypasta and duplicate content policy | Twitter Help An end to copy-paste tweetsWhat Is copypasta?
