Topix

Our paper has ran stories about Topix in the past and after checking it out I was horrified. From what I read, Topix has said it is a news aggregator and community journalism site. I found it to be anything but. What I said was one insult after another and considering I knew some of the people listed on the site, I saw plenty of libel which is illegal. I quickly discovered the simplistic site does not require its users to register for an account which that in itself tells you how trashy of a site it is and they have to have one of the worst feedback systems I have ever seen. From what I read and discovered they only have five moderators for hundreds of thousands of forums and the moderators have been known to post on the site attacking users to increase ad hits. I am also very disturbed at the lack of remorse shown by the CEO of Topix. What really stood out to me was when the media goes after him, he has claimed they were doing all they could to cut down on the libel (yet you won't hire more moderators and won't even make users register, Riiiiiggghhttt) but then would go on Tech sites mocking those who were concerned with the content and the media. As a parent that scares the heck out of me. I have since learned there is a growing number of people that are very worried about this website and many communities have tried to pass ordinances about it. I also learned many states have been adopting cyberbullying laws and many of them have stated it is because of the complaints they receive regarding Topix. They definitely need to make some changes. There are some other sites that concern me but I have never seen anything quite like or as disturbing as the Topix website.

I have always enjoyed the excitement of good debate and commenting on social issues, that is why I had some hope for a site called Topix. I quickly discovered that unless you enjoy attacking other people, using profanity, making racial slurs, and other horrible things, you don't belong on Topix. On most legitimate sites, a person goes through some type of registration and the comments are monitored. Topix will have none of that and I am completely convinced there is not a worse site on the internet. There seems to be very little good that comes off of the site and it has become a breeding ground for internet trolls to attack one another. Topix does an incredible job of drawing people who love to attack just for pure meanness and running off most good people who may want to comment on a newsstory. The site is about greed and I try my best not to do business with anyone who advertises on Topix.

What is even more shocking is media companies, Gannet, Tribune, and the McClatchy Group hold stock in this company, while often running articles talking about the dangers of cyberbullying and even occasionallly running negative stories on Topix. Because of this hypocrisy I refuse to buy any paper owned by any of those companies and I used to be an avid USA Today reader.

One other thing that scares me is one of their main advertisers is a dating site called Match.com. There certainly is nothing wrong with posting an online ad, but did you know that Match.com shows profiles of people on its site on Topix without their permission? That means that a person's privacy is being invaded and this is unethical. A person did not pay to have their profile used on another site.