The world has changed, and the average man in the street can now leverage more power than ever before, thanks to social media.

I could site hundreds of examples, but one of the most fun is one happening right as I type this.

It all started with a woman called Monica, who published an article online about apple pie, which got stolen by a magazine, Cooks Source, who edited the article slightly and published it, all without the knowledge or consent of Monica.

As soon as Monica found out from a friend, she contacted them, and got an arrogant reply back from one of their editors.

She posted her full story online, and it appeared on Reddit, where I first saw it, and suddenly the world went mad…

Cooks Source’s facebook page went crazy with people expressing their disbelief in the magazine’s blatant intellectual theft. This can only have negative impact for the company, as any Google search reveals dozens of blog posts, tweets and other articles taking the company to task for what they did to poor Monica. Somehow I think it will be difficult for them to recover from this one little incident.

The lesson to be learned here – Even if you try and take advantage of a seemingly insignificant person, the power of the social internet can come down on you in a big way.

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