TOPIX.com Under Investigation By Conn AG
ATTORNEY GENERAL INVESTIGATES TOPIX.COM POLICY FOR REMOVING ABUSIVE POSTS (press release)
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced that he is seeking details from Topix.com, an interactive message board website, concerning its policies for removing abusive posts that violate the website’s terms of service.
Blumenthal and Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway said they have received several complaints from users who claim it is virtually impossible to remove false and defamatory posts from Topix, including those targeting children, unless consumers agree to pay a $19.99 fee.
Blumenthal, who co-leads a multi-state Internet safety task force of attorneys general, and Conway requested information from Topix in a letter sent today as part of a joint investigation.
Blumenthal said, “False and obscene posts should be removed right away without charge — rewarding public-spirited readers, not gouging them for their vigilance. This apparent pay-to-police policy outrageously exploits and extorts users victimized by abusive and embarrassing posts.
“How outrageous that targets of false and obscene posts may be victimized twice — first by the abusive comment and then by the charge to remove it,” Blumenthal said. “Topix should reward — not rip off — consumers and victims who report abusive posts, particularly any targeting children, that violate the website’s own policies. The abusive posts seem to comprise a significant part of the traffic in the ‘Forums and Polls’ page and other forums.”
Topix.com, of Palo Alto, CA, describes itself as a “top ten online newspaper destination,” which encourages readers to post comments about news items or other matters of community interest.
Blumenthal and Conway said many posts in some forums on Topix.com contain explicit, vulgar, obscene and defamatory posts about other citizens, including children. Although Topix’ terms of service prohibit such posts, and allows users to “flag” them, consumer complaints indicate that simply flagging the post is ineffective — unless users pay Topix $19.99 for an “expedited review.”
Blumenthal and Conway said the website is confusing and appears designed to steer users toward paying the $19.99 option.
Blumenthal said, “Our investigation seeks details about how Topix enforces its own stated terms of service and upholds its own policies protecting its users. Our initial investigation has found that Topix selectively screens its site — depending on how deep users dig into their wallets. Topix should not shake its users out of money in exchange for reporting violators. Abusive consumers should be charged — not their victims who follow the rules and flag defamatory and derogatory posts.”
Conway said, “Abusive or negative posts can have a devastating impact on youth. Tragically, many teenagers today turn to suicide as a way to escape abuse or cyberbullying on the Internet. I have heard from parents, consumers and officials from across Kentucky who have complained about the outrageous comments that are allowed to be posted and not policed by Topix. General Blumenthal and I find it deplorable that any website would deliberately create an environment where false and derogatory comments about children, or anyone, would be permitted and then allowed to remain on the website.”
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9 Responses for “TOPIX.com Under Investigation By Conn AG”
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It has been mentioned how much libel and cyberbullying this company allows. When you don’t require registration and people can go in and post things that go out on the internet instantly that is going to happen and should never be allowed in a public forum where children can so easily access those things and private citizens can have their life ruined but Topix seems unconcerned as do the Gannett Company, Tribune Company, and McClatchy Group who are partial owners (and are three companies I will never buy another product from). However, the thing that has been overlooked is that a forum like Topix is a breeding ground for sexual predators. It makes life very simple for them and that should be enough for citizens to demand something be done and NOW!
“Topix moderation” is the ultimate oxymoron.
Topix pretends to want thriving, healthy communities of posters debating current issues and other topics of discussion. However, they do nothing when gangs of flamers and trolls hijack threads and wreck the communities that Topix supposedly wants and posters try so hard to build.
Topix extorts money from people, at $19.99 a pop, ostensibly under the guise of “expediting” serious complaints. Otherwise, complaints are ignored UNLESS the whole posting community starts bombarding Topix with emails, flags and faxes. I have seen it take hundreds of emails and reports from many people just to get ONE stalker/troll banned. Then, of course, the stalker/trolls come back the next day with a new account or proxy changer and the whole cycle of abuse and unheard complaints starts all over again. What’s the point?
In actuality, Topix WANTS trolls and flamers and stalkers. In their messed-up heads, this brings “excitement” and “controversy”, and therefore more posts, and therefore more revenue (which is all Topix cares about). I would not be surprised if some of the worst offenders were employed by Topix as “professional trolls”, paid specifically to stir the pot.
Have any of you ever googled around to see what people think of Topix? Topix has a terrible reputation among current and former members, for all the reasons I have just mentioned.
The telling part is, Topix knows all this and they just don’t care. They don’t care about you, they don’t care about thriving, healthy forum communities. You posters are just statistics in a database that they use to set advertising rates. All they care about is advertising revenue and their $19.99 extortion racket.
Proof? Simple. If they cared, they’d actually DO something to wrestle the site away from the stalkers, flamers, spammers and trolls. But they don’t. On the contrary, they encourage it. As an example of how they encourage stalking and trolling, they recently instituted the ability for registered members to change or hide ISP locations – it makes it much easier for the trolls and stalkers to harass people with cloned accounts, multiple sock-puppet accounts, etc.
Every troll on Topix knows being banned is totally meaningless. Being banned is not even a slap on the wrist. Topix is nothing more than a scummy racket, and they don’t care how miserable their reputation is, as long as the higher-ups are making money.
Topix has received a letter from over 20 attorney generals because it’s forum section in each town and city is nothing but pure trash. For instance, google any place like Pasadena, California, Pikeville, Kentucky topix and the list goes on. The forum section is unmoderated which means countless people including doctors, teachers,preachers, and other innocent people are often slandered. I have seen people called pedofiles and worse and topix profits from this hatred. One day someone is going to get killed over this site. If you want a topic removed, you have to pay basically twenty dollars for them to review it quickly with no guarantee it will be removed. The site allows slander, defamation, and libel which the last time I checked are criminal offenses. There is no filter system, they won’t post IP’s, and you don’t even have to register for the site meaning no one is safe. Pictures of children have been posted before and horrible things said. Chris Tolles in many interviews as justified the fact that this site allows racist comments, antireligious comments, and anyone can have their life destroyed by it and sees no problem with it. Even more appalling is some of its owners include the Gannett Corporation, The McClatchy Grop, and The Tribune Company, who all claim they are reputable news companies. How can you be reputable when you are even more trashy than the National Inquirer? Absolutely horrible.
Topix may have started out a good idea but quickly turned into basically a criminal site, slander and defamation of character are ILLEGAL, yet this site allows that. It should either be banned altogether or there should be moderation of all sites on a daily basis, messages should have to be approved before posting (in other words you can disagree with someone but no personal potshots) and a filter system where key words or someone’s name is not allowed to be posted if they request for their name not to be allowed.
You will not see the above name on TOPIX
I have been banned for telling the verifiable truth
I have been investigating Topix for nine months. They have the whole thing rigged to service trolls, with very devious programming tricks and aids. Also they are practicing censorship via shadow banning, the most unethical method of internet censorship possible.
Here is my Facebook note on my investigation: Something way funky is going on over at Topix
http://tinyurl.com/y6zmtpq
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