Fellow Steemit Users.
Please demand verification from new users posting emotional stories to garner rewards from the system. These stories are meant to tug at your heart and make you feel bad if you even so much as think to question their authenticity.
But red flags should go off when you see professional quality images of a person shooting up heroin. Heroin addicts do not customarily have professional photographers following them around while they shoot up and perform at a strip club.
All of the images and information provided in this heart felt story are taken from an article written in January 2016 which can be found here ... http://www.refinery29.com/2016/01/100045/sara-naomi-lewkowicz-photo-series-woman-heroin-addict#slide. No new information or images are provided. The story is simply changed a little to come from a first person perspective. The Steem Community is being played.
Please do a web search for images and text used in stories coming from new users, especially stories that tug on your emotional response system. This is how scammers work and it works well. There is only so much money to give out each day and personally I would rather see it go to legitimate post and legitimate people who take time out of their own day to provide us with quality original content.
Rewarding scammers who copy and paste a journalist work not only hurts other Steemit users by reducing daily rewards, but it takes advantage of the journalist hard work by allowing the scammer to make money off of their labor, as well as the poor girl in the story.
Update
User @beowulfoflegend and his keen eye also points this out ...
Alex's story of overcoming addiction is absolutely amazing, but I agree with @adm - something is a tiny bit fishy. Not doubting, but I'd like some verification too.
The thing that throws me off? Alex says she's from Baltimore, which leads me to believe that she grew up there. Yet this post uses a couple of European writing conventions that Americans typically wouldn't:
"2,5 years" instead of 2.5 years
"resocialise" instead of resocialize
I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time it's unfair to profit off of someone else's story.
If you upvoted the post (linked below), please consider removing your upvote until OP post verification, which is unlikely.
Post in question: @alexica/5-years-addicted-to-heroin-my-story-told-in-pictures