9GAG

If you have't already, I think you should read this

it's 2 years old, but it gives some great insight to how bad of a problem this is.

9gag users aren't photoshopping the watermark out, it's probably staff.

Also, an important tidbit, words like "reddit" will make your comment not visible to other users, attempting to prevent you from calling out reposts.

Unfortunately, I have to repost it all here thanks that that thing that almost all subs do where you can link to anywhere on the internet but you have to pretend that the rest of reddit doesn't exist.

These are things I've observed in the last weeks, even months. I've been looking very closely at how, when and which submissions 9GAG steals. Today, I present my results.

UPDATE

I've edited my entire post. The 9GAG Administration is reacting to my creation and are observing the Hot / Trending page very carefully. They copy fewer submissions from reddit and give their copies realistic post times. The Trending[1] and Hot[2] page is being updated very slowly, which is very strange. Unless they are now missing the copies/reposts they usually take from other sites. Looks like I've caught the attention of the 9GAG bosses!

OBSERVATIONS

• 9GAG does indeed steal submissions from other sites everyday. Sometimes up to 90% of the Hot or Trending page are reposts from reddit, their main source.

You should know this one by now.

• 9GAG does not have automated scripts which steal your submissions. Everything is done by humans.

I don't know who came up with that idea that they made scripts, because it's just wrong. They have hired people to browse the biggest subreddits (such as /pics , funny , gaming , wtf , aww , f7u12 , adviceanimals , videos) and steal content. Day for day.

• 9GAG staff visits sites like tumblr.com, funnyjunk.com, reddit()com and 4chan.org in order to identify threats and react correctly.

They are reading this right now. This will make most my links to 9GAG lead to 404 or redirect you to their index page.

• When 9GAG steals a submission (from reddit), they rename the title and remove watermarks.

Proves that actual people are stealing our content. They have become pretty good at removing the reddit alien watermark from our rage comics and they will change our submission titles to "9GAG appropriate" ones. For example, they will replace the word "reddit" with "9GAG". Or rename "I have made this awesome cake" to "Awesome Cake" and "Look what I've found in Paris!" to "Genius graffiti from Paris" (they cannot be all over the world at the same time).

Bots cannot do this task. Only humans can.

*reddit is not the only site they steal from.

I have noticed they steal from other sites like tumblr and pinterest as well. Probably there are even more websites.

• 9GAG fakes the submission times of stolen posts in order to make it seem like 9GAG is the original source.

Let's take a closer look at this one.

reddit post: [Link removed, because remember other subs don't exist]

9GAG post:

reddit post time: 22 hours ago

9GAG post time: 23 hours ago

Now, it seems like it was posted on 9GAG before reddit! This is a witty trick from the 9GAG Administration. Let's find out by how many hours their post time has been manipulated. For this we take a look at the next post: . Obviously this has been posted before because the submission number is smaller. But when we look at the submission times, we see this...

post time: 17 hours ago

post time: 23 hours ago

When it should be reverse! Oh dear, what is this? Wizard magic? Or proof that 9GAG invented the time machine?!

*9GAG does not want their users to notice that their community is very restrictedly ruled by admins.

They're pretty good at hiding this. Their commenting system will automatically hide your comment if it contains the word "reddit" or "reddit()com", for example. It is only visible for yourself. Sign off Facebook and your comment will be gone.

They have taken other steps to make sure their users don't notice that most of the top 9GAG posts are stolen. They have removed the submission times from Hot / Trending, they have removed the Likes from user pages (except your own) - because bots can easily be spot since they have 0 likes - and they have removed comments from user pages because people would point out bots.

• 9GAG "repost accounts" are easy to spot. If you know they exist.

Example "repost account": ()

Take a look at his posts. Nearly every single one reached the Trending or Hot page (indicated by the high number of comments and likes). This is impossible, regular accounts look like this (Screenshot[21] ) and don't ever reach the Trending / Hot page. Not to mention with every single post.

• 9GAG staff does look out for people who point out "repost accounts". Nearly all of them are gone now. Once they see a "repost account" mentioned, they will not delete it - but change its name.

Seems like they really don't want to make this go public. They also want to keep the stolen content. Everytime a "repost account" is discovered, they give it a new name. Repeat ad infinitum.

At first I thought they have created a script that automatically changes the accounts name after a certain amount of visits (let's say 100) use the referrer reddit()com (or 4chan.org, tumblr.com...). But I shouldn't give them ideas. The account has been changed as well, so there are definitely people changing the accounts names. I have never linked it anywhere, nor has anyone else. The referrer is i.imgur.com and not reddit()com.

"repost accounts" usually have two words in their names, maybe one or two underscores, some random numbers before or after the name. They have made a name generator script only for this purpose.

CONCLUSIONS

• The fact that 9GAG has to constantly steal content from other sites is only proof that 9GAG has the worst community ever. their users cannot come up with their own funny content.

• 9GAG seems to be based upon the idea that the administration steals content from other sites, . It looks like they have always been stealing. Check how many posts have been posted by a user called "reddit". But now they have decided to hide the fact that they take their content from reddit.

• 9GAG does not want people to know this. They've done several things to make their content theft go unnoticed.

FURTHER PROOF

If you still don't believe it, check out these administrator accounts. Look how all of their posts got massive votes and comments - something that is impossible to achieve without cheating the system.

Here 's [reddit post link removed]some proof that 9GAG reads even tiny subreddits like 9gag. They deleted the 9GAG account of this redditor shortly after he created his thread.

Humans make mistakes, and 9GAG staff are only humans. is a post they accidentally uploaded on their Trending page. 9GAG users didn't understand the joke and their mistake went viral on reddit. Then 9GAG found out and removed the post (...since they observe reddit). Lulz was had.

OTHER STUFF

( ) ( ) ( ) Let's see how long it takes for them to fix the issue.

The owner of this post is a Watch how it changes as soon as it is being discovered:

• IS A REPOST ACCOUNT! WE FOUND OUT, 9GAG! YOU BETTER DELETE IT, 9GAG STAFF, OR I WILL BE VERY ANGRY...*

• is one of the oldest 9GAG accounts. Seems familiar?

WHAT WILL HAPPEN NOW

Either 9GAG stops stealing content from other sites using their evil system they have developped over time and leaves the content creation to their userbase

OR

they will make it even harder to detect stolen content, add more protection mechanisms and cover their tracks even better.

I recommend you go for the first option, dear 9GAG Admin who is reading this.

I apologize for my poor English skills. Feel free to copy this post. 9FAG_EXPERT out.

Edit: I still login occasionally to answer private messages. If you have any questions, feel free to message me.