A theme I’ve returned to on occasion over the years is the increasing tendency of some to simply lift someone else’s material off of the Web, without modification or adjustment through other sources. I’ve even publicly called my daughter out on it, so I do not discriminate in my criticism. This practice is called plagiarism. It is especially amusing when someone does it without even looking at the substance of what is being copied.

Thus we have a White House employee (I’m guessing someone young) copying the bio for the Italian prime minister from an online site called Encyclopedia of World Biography. According to Al Kamen’s Washington Post column, the White House released at the G-8 summit in Japan a bio to reporters on Silvio Burlusconi that said he is “a political dilettante who gained high office only through use of his considerable influence on the national media,” adding he is “one of the most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for governmental corruption and vice.”

Once again, just because the Internet lets you do something doesn’t mean you should.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 12:01 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.