‘I visited the Privet forums and found this old report from a target called Samantha, a mind coach.

“The first time that I noticed a phrase I’d written being somewhere else was on my Twitter a few days after my iPhone had bricked. I used to follow a load of journalists back then, top intellectuals, authors, and other people as well, just ordinary people without that many followers, and people in my industry.

The first thing I noticed was an idea that seemed quite close — too close — to one of mine. The idea was in one of my files in which I keep my training plans and all my new ideas. There’s clients information in there and bits about my business.

I don’t want to expose anyone particularly. But at the same time these are my ideas — these are my own private thoughts. And these people on Twitter and other places thought it was OK to steal from me.

I saw that one idea — too close to mine. There was a link to click. I clicked the link. It was a video of a not-that-famous guru saying the same words from the Twitter post, and more. I thought it was weird. At first, I put it down to coincidence. These small ideas of mine must not be all that different. I mean, I’ve had one book published but just a small thing. I didn’t think there was any selfishness or harm in any way involved. But other posts soon followed — ones with these ideas of mine, expressed the same as me, it was too weird, and that one only place the files were kept was on my iPhone.”

What Samantha had realised was that something more co-ordinated was more likely going on. The makers meant to tweet her work as theirs — before she tweeted it, and make it seem like she had taken it. Her clicks on those links would leave a browser trail, but when they took it in the first place there wouldn’t be a trail.

To simplify. Samantha’s property was claimed. Split apart and sprayed around. To make her sense seem wrong. To undermine her, basically. To make her a thief and a fantasist. She goes on:

“I realised that my ideas were being put out on Twitter, and in other places, by these other people, claiming it from me. Media people, thinkers, ordinary people. From what I’ve since read here on the forum, to be fair to the makers they don’t think for themselves: they just do as they’re told. They weren’t each posting out those bits of mine after giving it some thought themselves.”

My own experience was similar. On Twitter, content that was clearly mine kept on appearing. So I started to avoid the links that journalists and others kept on tweeting.’