Gervise.com

Come on, Gervise.com, who are you trying to fool?

Your article from July 3 is titled: "Students Create App To Improve Your Public Speaking And Speech Anxiety."

A GoodNewsNetwork.org article from July 2 is titled: "Students Create App to Improve Your Public Speaking and Speech Anxiety"

Your opening:

Do you get queasy when you think about getting on a stage? Do you have trouble getting through a speech without stuttering? Well, now there’s an app for that. 

Two college students from Drexel University have created an app called Orai – and it’s designed to help people improve their public speaking skills. 

Orai uses artificial intelligence to offer constructive and concise feedback on clarity, timing, content, delivery, pace, and vocal energy. The app is free to download for Android and iOS.

The opening from GoodNewsNetwork.org:

Do you get queasy when you think about getting on a stage? Do you have trouble getting through a speech without stuttering? Well, now there’s an app for that. 

Two college students from Drexel University have created an app called Orai – and it’s designed to help people improve their public speaking skills. 

Orai uses artificial intelligence to offer constructive and concise feedback on clarity, timing, content, delivery, pace, and vocal energy. The app is free to download for Android and iOS.

You're copying-and-pasting someone else's content.  And you've got AdSense advertisements on your site?  That's just sketchy.

ViralInam.com

Come on, ViralInam.com, who are you trying to fool?

Your article from earlier in July is titled: "High Sugar Intake Linked To Mental Health Disorders in Men."

An IFLScience.com article from July 28 is titled: "High Sugar Intake Linked To Mental Health Disorders In Men."

Your opening:

Researchers have found that men who consume a lot of products high in added sugars are more likely to develop conditions like anxiety and depression after five years, compared to men with low sugar intake. A similar link was not seen in women, and the data showed that the opposite relationship is not true – people with mental disorders don’t tend to consume more sugary products. 

The study, published in Scientific Reports, followed 5,000 men and 2,000 women for a period of 22 years. It showed that men who consume more than 67 grams of sugar have a 23 percent increased chance of poor mental health compared to men that consume less than 39.5 grams. This finding was independent of other factors like health behavior, age, socioeconomic status, etc.

The opening from IFLScience.com:

Researchers have found that men who consume a lot of products high in added sugars are more likely to develop conditions like anxiety and depression after five years, compared to men with low sugar intake. A similar link was not seen in women, and the data showed that the opposite relationship is not true – people with mental disorders don’t tend to consume more sugary products. 

The study, published in Scientific Reports, followed 5,000 men and 2,000 women for a period of 22 years. It showed that men who consume more than 67 grams of sugar have a 23 percent increased chance of poor mental health compared to men that consume less than 39.5 grams. This finding was independent of other factors like health behavior, age, socioeconomic status, etc.

You're copying-and-pasting someone else's content.  And you've got AdSense advertisements on your site?  That's just sketchy.

HiddenFeed.com

HiddenFeed.com is yet another website with plagiarized content.  The WhoIs registration page shows an address in Pakistan.

Article:
Netflix Officially Kills Star Ratings, Replacing Them With Thumbs Up and Down
http://hiddenfeed.com/netflix-officially-kills-star-ratings-replacing-thumbs/

Original:
Netflix Officially Kills Star Ratings, Replacing Them With Thumbs Up and Down
http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/netflix-kills-star-ratings-thumbs-up-thumbs-down-1202023257/

The site also has a bunch of AdChoices ads on its articles.

More Techiwire.com articles

Techiwire.com is still around.

Article #1:
88-year-old grandma crosses skydiving off her bucket list: ‘It was wonderful’
http://techiwire.com/2017/07/29/88-year-old-grandma-crosses-skydiving-off-her-bucket-list-it-was-wonderful/

Original #1:
88-Year-Old Grandma Crosses Skydiving Off Her Bucket List: 'It Was Wonderful'

http://www.insideedition.com/headlines/24654-88-year-old-grandma-crosses-skydiving-off-her-bucket-list-it-was-wonderful

Article #2:

Strange silk: Why rappelling spiders don’t spin out of control

http://techiwire.com/2017/07/08/strange-silk-why-rappelling-spiders-dont-spin-out-of-controlc/

Original #2:
Strange Silk: Why Rappelling Spiders Don’t Spin Out of Control

https://publishing.aip.org/publishing/journal-highlights/strange-silk-why-rappelling-spiders-dont-spin-out-control

Both Techiwire articles have display ads via AdChoices. 

whyme1239 returns

I figured whyme1239 would eventually try to monetize his YouTube channels.

He has at least two channels:  Sports Valley and Recorder.

And although I don't see any ads on Sports Valley, I do see ads on Recorder.  The videos uploaded onto these channels have been circulating around the internet for years, and I think it's safe to assume whyme1239 didn't create them.  They're just short, silly clips such as...

Awesome Rabbit rally car  (A rabbit goes chasing after a car.)

Extra Crispy (A bird lands on a space shuttle.)

and

Chinese Hurdler just doesn't give a fuck (An athlete runs through hurdles.)

Cevolt.com

Come on, Cevolt.com, who are you trying to fool?

Your article from July 8 is titled: "Police officers mow lawn of disable veteran."

A Fox News article from July 7 is titled: "Police officers mow lawn of disable veteran."

Your first two articles:

A pair of Texas police officers are being recognized for their good deed after a neighbor snapped a few photos of them mowing the lawn of a disabled veteran. The photos made their way onto the Longview Police Department Facebook page on Wednesday after the neighbor contacted the department. 

“Moments Like These,” a post on the department’s Facebook page read. “There are times in the police profession that we understand why we’re really excited about this job. The days and night of high speed pursuits, food chases, drug arrests of someone who needs to be taken off the streets are the instances where our blood pressure soars, and we get that feeling of exhilaration. We think this is why we became officers.”

The first two articles from Fox News:

A pair of Texas police officers are being recognized for their good deed after a neighbor snapped a few photos of them mowing the lawn of a disabled veteran. The photos made their way onto the Longview Police Department Facebook page on Wednesday after the neighbor contacted the department. 

“Moments Like These,” a post on the department’s Facebook page read. “There are times in the police profession that we understand why we’re really excited about this job. The days and night of high speed pursuits, food chases, drug arrests of someone who needs to be taken off the streets are the instances where our blood pressure soars, and we get that feeling of exhilaration. We think this is why we became officers.”

You're copying someone else's work without giving credit.  And you've got AdSense ads on your articles?  That's just sketchy.

Another Ktase.com article

There was a Ktase article posted on June 28, 2017, which copied-and-pasted content from the New York Times.  The article in question was an obituary for the author Margaux Fragoso, written by Sam Roberts.

The Ktase article was titled:

Margaux Fragoso, Memoirist Who Wrote Hauntingly of Sexual Abuse, Dies at 38
http://ktase.com/2017/06/margaux-fragoso-memoirist-who-wrote-hauntingly-of-sexual-abuse-dies-at-38/
(http://archive.is/J2Ma6)

The New York Times article was titled:

Margaux Fragoso, Memoirist Who Wrote Hauntingly of Sexual Abuse, Dies at 38

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/books/margaux-fragoso-dead-wrote-tiger-tiger.html

I made an archive snapshot of the Ktase article a month ago, and the amount of text appears to have been sheared since then.  The article was 400 words long back when I archived it.  

The Ktase link had also been posted in the /r/books subreddit, where it received 918 upvotes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/6jyiz4/margaux_fragoso_memoirist_who_wrote_hauntingly_of/

Another Zinfoze.com article

Here is another Zinfoze article, from July 27, 2017:

Justin Bieber Cancels ‘Purpose’ Tour Dates for His ‘Soul and Well-Being’
http://zinfoze.com/justin-bieber-cancels-purpose-tour-dates-for-his-soul-and-well-being

It consists of four paragraphs, but the four paragraphs are from the opening or Joe Coscarelli's article in the New York Times from July 25, 2017:

Justin Bieber Cancels ‘Purpose’ Tour Dates for His ‘Soul and Well-Being’

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/arts/music/justin-bieber-tour-canceled.html

The Zinfoze article is only 167 words, and the Times article looks to be about 3x that length.  So it's not like Zinfoze copied the entire thing.  They just copied enough to get across the crux of the story.  The rest of Coscarelli's article provides additional info about Bieber's tour.   

Zinfoze has advertisements from AdChocies on its site.  Here's an archive of the article: 

http://archive.is/UHjnw

I noticed someone posted the Zinfoze article in the /r/music subreddit.  It got 15,700 upvotes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/6puw5l/justin_bieber_cancels_purpose_tour_dates_for_his/

Blouin

I've never heard of Louise Blouin or ArtInfo, but this is an interesting blurb from the New York Post:
http://pagesix.com/2017/07/06/artinfo-used-fictional-bylines-after-outsourcing-staff-to-india/:

We’re told that after laying off staff, owner Louise Blouin outsourced the editorial to India. But to make it seem as if there were still a cosmopolitan staff, articles were given bylines with hilariously generic international names.

Outsourcing: It's not just in manufacturing and customer service.

Six suspended reddit accounts

Gitssa was the first account to be suspended.  And earlier today I noticed the other five were suspended:

1.) HollaDouble2: https://www.reddit.com/user/holladouble2
2.) TurkeryBurgerFries: https://www.reddit.com/user/turkeyburgerfries
3.) KnifeandForrk: https://www.reddit.com/user/knifeandforrk
4.) KeysToTheThreedom: https://www.reddit.com/user/keystothethreedom
5.) GangstaGirlSarah: https://www.reddit.com/user/gangstagirlsarah
6.) Gitssa: https://www.reddit.com/user/gitssa

I don't know if these six account were all controlled by the same person.  There seemed to be variations in their writing styles.  But for one reason or another I lumped them together in my mind.

The curious case of whyme1239

There was a video posted in the /r/Television subreddit on Saturday by user whyme1239.  It was an old, viral clip of a woman solving a Wheel Of Fortune puzzle with only one letter:

https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/6m0r30/woman_solves_wheel_of_fortune_puzzle_with_one/

Here's an archive link for the actual video.  The YouTube channel is "Leura Butt."  She has 2 subscribers and joined on June 30, 2017.

So far, the Wheel of Fortune video has 15,000+ views.  In theory, that means the YouTube channel can be monetized.  There was only one other video on the channel, and that had about 7,500 views.  I'll be curious to see if other videos get posted in the next week and whether they're monetized.

But let's go back to whyme1239.  I don't think the person is genuine.  

On May 27, 2017, whyme1239 answered the question, "What is the most ignorant thing someone has said to you?"  He wrote: "Girl I used to work with was absolutely convinced that Jews are descended from pigs."  

However, back on August 20, 2016, Reddit user CrazyOtto87 wrote the exact same comment in response to the question: "What's the most ignorant thing you've ever heard someone say?"

What does that mean when someone is copying-and-pasting old comments?

Those wacky aggregators

The New York Times wrote about a lawsuit between Distractify.com and TwentyTwoWords.com, and they had a nice description of all those uplifting/quirky sites that I was writing about the other day.

Indeed, aggregation (or curation — whatever you’d like to call it) of content on other sites is a major driver of reader traffic to many articles, especially in viral content publications. They tend to focus on emerging memes, entertaining social media posts and uplifting stories that can be written up quickly. Publications compete against each other for clicks, which lead to advertising revenue.

I used EliteDaily as the prime example of these sorts of websites, but Distractify and 22Words fall into the same category.  Here's the Times article:
https://nytimes.com/2017/07/06/business/media/distractify-lawsuit-22-words.html

MyFunnyPalace.com

What's the deal with MyFunnyPalace.com?

There was an article on MyFunnyPalace on June 13 titled: "98-Year-Old Just Donated $2 Million In Stock To Create A Wildlife Sanctuary."

A BoredPanda.com article from June 4 was titled: "This 98-Year-Old Just Donated $2 Million In Stock To Create A 395-Acre Wildlife Refuge."

They're the same article.  And normally I'd chalk this up to plagiarism except I don't really know what the deal is with BoredPanda, either.  Apparently it's some story-publishing platform.  It has the same "feel" as sites like EliteDaily.  You know...quirky and uplifting stories, combined with art, animal and trivia posts. The site has almost 10,000,000 Facebook followers, which sounds like a lot!

Zinfoze.com

Come on, Zinfoze.com, who are you trying to fool?

Your article from June 30 is titled, "Ancient South Carolina whale yields secrets to filter feeding’s origins."

A ScienceDaily article from June 29 is titled, "Ancient South Carolina whale yields secrets to filter feeding's origins."

Your first two paragraphs:

The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived. And yet they feed almost exclusively on tiny crustaceans known as krill. The secret is in the baleen, a complex filter-feeding system that allows the enormous whales to strain huge volumes of saltwater, leaving only krill and other small organisms behind. Now, researchers who have described an extinct relative of baleen whales in Current Biology on June 29 offer new insight into how baleen first evolved. 

The findings shed light on a long-standing debate about whether the first baleen whales were toothless suction feeders or toothed whales that used their teeth like a sieve to filter prey out of water, the researchers say. The teeth of the newly discovered species of mysticete, called Coronodon havensteini, lend support to the latter view.

The first two paragraphs from ScienceDaily:

The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived. And yet they feed almost exclusively on tiny crustaceans known as krill. The secret is in the baleen, a complex filter-feeding system that allows the enormous whales to strain huge volumes of saltwater, leaving only krill and other small organisms behind. Now, researchers who have described an extinct relative of baleen whales in Current Biology on June 29 offer new insight into how baleen first evolved. 

The findings shed light on a long-standing debate about whether the first baleen whales were toothless suction feeders or toothed whales that used their teeth like a sieve to filter prey out of water, the researchers say. The teeth of the newly discovered species of mysticete, called Coronodon havensteini, lend support to the latter view.

You're just taking ScienceDaily's content and slapping your own name on it.  AND you've got a bunch of AdChoices links on your page?  That's just sketchy.

Jesow.com

Come on, Jesow.com, who are you trying to fool?

Your article from June 26 is titled, "Cancer Cells May Streamline Their Genomes In Order To Proliferate More Easily."

A ScienceDaily article from June 22 is titled, "Cancer cells may streamline their genomes in order to proliferate more easily."

Your first two paragraphs:

Research from the Stowers Institute provides evidence suggesting that cancer cells might streamline their genomes in order to proliferate more easily. The study, conducted in both human and mouse cells, shows that cancer genomes lose copies of repetitive sequences known as ribosomal DNA. While downsizing might enable these cells to replicate faster, it also seems to render them less able to withstand DNA damage. 

The findings, published June 22, 2017, in PLoS Genetics, suggest that ribosomal DNA copy number could be used to predict which cancers will be sensitive to DNA-damaging chemotherapeutics.

The first two paragraphs from ScienceDaily.com:

Research from the Stowers Institute provides evidence suggesting that cancer cells might streamline their genomes in order to proliferate more easily. The study, conducted in both human and mouse cells, shows that cancer genomes lose copies of repetitive sequences known as ribosomal DNA. While downsizing might enable these cells to replicate faster, it also seems to render them less able to withstand DNA damage. 

The findings, published June 22, 2017, in PLoS Genetics, suggest that ribosomal DNA copy number could be used to predict which cancers will be sensitive to DNA-damaging chemotherapeutics.

You're taking ScienceDaily's content and slapping your own name on it.  AND you've got a bunch of AdChoices links on your page?  That's just sketchy.

Imgly.me

Here is another new image-hosting site: Imgly.me.  Its homepage is mimicking the site UltraIMG.com, as you can see here: http://archive.is/vHInj.