Sixth grade. We had to write a research essay on an assigned history topic. Because many of the students had never written a long research paper before the teacher had us just submit the intro paragraph for review before writing the rest of the essay (which in retrospect is a terrible way to teach kids how to write a paper). I went to the library, did a ton of reading, and wrote an intro paragraph that was entirely my own words but stylistically heavily inspired by the various reference books on the topic.

After submitting the intro paragraph the teacher called me into a separate room to privately review it. She kindly but cautiously said that this introduction was very well written, but did I actually write it myself or did I copy it from a book I read? I smiled big and, butsting with pride, exclaimed, “I wrote it entirely by myself!” Because what better compliment in sixth grade than having the teacher consider your work so good that it was suspected of being plagiarized from something an adult wrote and published? Apparently my response was so obviously proud and glowing, without a hint of shame or guilt, that all suspicions were instantly dropped.

I was accused of plagiarism in a college history class. Out of the four page paper, a single sentence came back as a high match to an article I had never read. The sentence was really generic too; something like “Skywalker light and sound became a leader in the industry.” I plead my case to the professor, and he believed me, but he still knocked me a letter grade.

I had an English essay assignment senior year of high school that I didn’t want to do. I looked through my old essays (never used to delete things) and found one that was almost the same prompt, so I thought “screw it” and changed the date/class name and submitted that. I didn’t give much thought to it, but every teacher used the same essay plagiarism checker, and my essay got flagged as being previously turned in. The teacher pulled me aside in class and gave me a lecture about plagiarism and why I can’t submit other people’s work, so I told her to check the name on the original essay because it was mine. Once she realized I had “plagiarized” myself, she let it go but told me I had to redo the assignment anyway because I “can’t re-submit old work”.

Was accused of AI plagiarism. When we ran it through the scanner, the only AI content was from a block quote. Not a big deal because the instructor wasn’t those angry types. They were really chill but I wish they checked what was flagged as AI content first (-_-). At least they apologized.

Back on reddit, I once got a long, rather angry-sounding comment on one of my posts, saying that I had obviously stolen content from a youtuber, and the person even linked the channel I had “stolen from” to prove a point.

They somehow missed the fact that both the reddit account and youtube channel had the same username, the same icon, and were linked to each other in both profiles, because it was MY youtube channel.

The most surreal part is that it happened the other way around a couple of days later, where a different person ON youtube accused me of lazily recycling posts from reddit …

I posted an artwork I had made on a social media website that I had also put on a different relevant site the previous day. Some random guy from another country claimed I had stolen it and he knew that because he knew the original artist in real life. He had actually just seen my other post, but by the time I saw his comment, the hivemind reacted and the damage had been done. Editing the description on the first version I posted to indicate that I was the artist and person who posted in both places was too little too late.

I saw his photo, he lied about knowing me to accuse me of lying about my efforts. What a dick.

I stopped posting anything I make anywhere, fuck it. I don’t have the energy to defend myself against bullshit accusations from liars.

I personally was accused by a teacher of mine in highschool because she had my assignment I submitted but also had a copy of another students assignment with my name on it somehow which I assume was caused by the teacher making a mistake with naming submissions

I even showed this teacher my assignment which I had submitted through email but the school made me redo the entire assignment on the day it was due because of this teachers mistakes

I was not happy about that

There are many sites I signed up for where I signed up as the same name someone else had on another site, for example I signed up as ItsJustAFleshWoundCharlieBrown on Jstor (you know, that university site) and the ItsJustAFleshWoundCharlieBrown from Google Plus (ah I remember that place) filed several complaints. They insist it’s impersonation as well as infringement but a name is just a part of the registry process, it’s not like I’m their carbon copy. Names are like a game of musical chairs, I cannot complain when my chair is taken and for that reason neither can anyone else, but they always do.

College, my second year. The software they used flagged my work as something like 90% plagiarised. Thankfully the software showed the user it was saying it was plagiarised from… which was me from my first year lol. It was quickly sorted out and no lasting issue thankfully but when I first saw that percentage I freaked out

I’m bummed that no one in this thread has an exact duplicate post with more upvotes. Can we make it happen to my post, or is that too childish?