An internet news site called The Daily Dot has accused Ashton Kutcher‘s website, aplus.com of copying and pasting its entire content from other websites such as BuzzFeed and The Huffington Post without crediting the sources.
According to The Guardian, The Daily Dot investigated aplus.com and found out that the website made minor changes to the articles before reposting them. The Guardian also reports that after The Daily Dot contacted aplus.com for comments, the website quickly took down all content posted before July from its site including all tweets before Aug. 6 and all Facebook posts before Aug. 8.
In a statement, a spokesperson for aplus.com told The Guardian:
“We take these allegations seriously and are looking into them. The content that was removed was taken down as a precautionary measure. Respecting the intellectual property of others is extremely important to us.”
aplus.com was first launched in 2011 to provide a mixture of articles, videos and lifehacks. It was relaunched in 2013 and allegedly hit more than 30 million unique visitors in 100 days. However, this is not the first time the website has been accused of plagiarism. In July, a photographer accused the website of copying his work via social media.
