TikTok is being plagued by more and more accounts plagiarizing and impersonating other content across different platforms.
From AI-voiced Reddit stories to reposts of videos from bigger accounts, TikTok has become the new hotspot of stolen content.
These issues have already been present on other bigger platforms like YouTube and X (formerly Twitter), but none has so far shown more prevalent content stealing than what is happening on TikTok.
The Medium and Vox have reported of users ripping-off each other to gain views but the issue has only gotten worse as the social media platform become more mainstream.
What's worse is that this online environment cultivated on TikTok's darker corners affects every user on the platform.
TikTok Content Plagiarism, Impersonation on the Rise
Plagiarism and impersonation have become part of TikTok's bottom line of contents over the past years.
Just searching up instructional videos on the platform shows multiple accounts exhibiting similar content with the most viewed result.
This is not to account for advice and instructions ripped directly from online websites without crediting or getting approval from the original creator.
Video reposting is also on the rise with several accounts taking it as far as to impersonate prominent content creators down to their username and handle.
How Does Plagiarism Affect All TikTok Users?
While impersonation and plagiarism mainly affect the original content creators and their revenues on the platform, the culture cultivated on the site somehow also affects the consumers.
Supporting ripped-off content only promotes more copied content on the platform, hindering original ideas from making it to the mainstream.
As TikTok's algorithm adjusts based on the videos the user watches, it gets harder to find original content on the platform.
This can already be seen with users seeing more AI-summarized movies on their feed, many of which even provide incorrect stories as the script was just also AI-generated.
AI Rise Feared to Ramp Up Numbers of Stolen Contents
The rise of AI technology only further amplified these fears as people can easily automate content from existing ones.
With new AI technologies like OpenAI's Sora being developed, it is easier for smaller accounts to produce plagiarized content with impunity to gain the favor of the algorithm.
It can already be seen with supposed inspirational videos and fictional testimonies from AI-generated characters spread across the platform.
As of writing, TikTok has already taken steps to ensure that all AI-generated content must be labeled accordingly.
