Twitter starts deleting tweets from people who steal jokes

Twitter has started deleting tweets from people who steal others' jokes and tweet them as their own on grounds of copyright infringement.

The popular social networking service started taking down tweets that copy the same joke that somebody else has already shared after a Los Angeles-based freelance writer spotted that one of her Twitter jokes was being reposted by others without her permission.

Writer Olga Lexell filed a request to have the tweets removed, saying that most of the accounts that were reusing her tweets without accreditation were "spam accounts that repost tons of other people's jokes every day".

"I simply explained to Twitter that as a freelance writer I make my living writing jokes (and I use some of my tweets to test out jokes in my other writing)," Lexell was quoted as saying by the US-based media network The Verge.

"I then explained that as such, the jokes are my intellectual property, and that the users in question did not have my permission to repost them without giving me credit," she said. Twitter responded by deleting the jokes and has now a media website's policy to give the offending tweeter some 10 days to file a counter notice.

User @PlagiarismBad first reported the change in policy by Twitter by posting a screenshot of a number of plagiarised jokes being hidden by the site. Twitter employees trawl through the takedown requests and decided whether or not they appear valid, the report said.