First of all, any politician who would use the worst cyberbullying site on the internet to publicize their campaign automatically loses my vote. Topix has destroyed many communities and the list is growing. There have been a growing number of newsstories about how that company does business, people have lost jobs, marriages, etc. If Topix wants to have some kind of social conscience then what they need to do is moderate their often sick forums, require registration, and protect people from the libel, slander, and defamation that occurs on that site. Topix has destroyed so many lives. Basically what you have is pure greed. If they add the political component what they are doing is looking for more ruthless, libelous attacks on people, this time politicians which only serve to spread even more hatred toward government, etc. If Topix is going to move into the politicial spectrum and what is this about being a news site? I can give you a list of tons of community forums where there is maybe two or three news stories at best but dozens if not hundreds of attacks on citizens. It is a cyberbullying site at the present that puts in just enough news to try and hide behind the “news aggregator” label. It is also how the Tribune, McClatchy, and Gannett try to justify being stockholders. I used to buy papers from those companies but when I learned of their affliation with Topix, I refuse. I can't help but notice Venturebeat never runs a story on the destruction Topix has done to so many people.

In the wake of the tragedy that occurred in Arizona, the last thing a site like Topix needs to do is become more political. The type of libel, defamation, and flat out criminal junk they allow on Topix is astonishing. All it takes is some disturbed individual posting death threats to a politician on Topix and some other cruel individuals egging them on to lead to more tragedy and even more division in this country. With speech comes responsibility but Topix is driven by evil and greed.There is a post on Topix in Kentucky where a person is encouraged to kill themselves. A few weeks ago a Kentucky tv station ran a story about a suicide post and then Topix tried to do spin control. Recently a man won over 400,000 for being flat out libeled on Topix. The content on Topix for the most part is trash. It is simply an easy way for people to go online and attack others and Topix to make money off of it. Topix claims to cover news, yet they admitted small towns and midsized cities are their core audience. I hate to tell them but in small towns there is no news which means your “news” is nothing but gossip and libel, that is nothing to be praised. There are attacks every second on Topix and few are being removed, but if Topix claim that people should be allowed to say or do anything, why do they remove anything at all? Oh that's right because some speech is not free and some of it is criminal. Topix can't have it both ways. They have a responsibility to moderate their site and some of the forums like the AFAM, human sexuality forum, and the drug forums are sick. There are also way too many community forums. You don't need a forum for every small town because sometimes the towns are connected together. Topix gets reported to attorney generals on a regular basis. I will be reporting them as soon as I am done posting this because a person has been encouraged to kill themselves in Danville. This site is evil and there is no defending what Topix does. If they took more pride in their community required a registration process (what is happening is often times it is the same person changing their name trying to make a post look popular and then Topix claiming they have so many original comments).

One other thought, what happened to the agreement with all the Attorney Generals involving removing abusive posts within 72 hours. There are a ton of horrible posts that have stayed up for months at a time despite numerous reports. Funny how whenever Topix removes something it is usually because the media or litigation is involved isn't it?Before Topix ventures into more political commentary it needs to focus on fixing the numerous problems it already has. If the company is strong registration and moderation should be no problem, if it is not then that speaks volumes.

Now that I think about it this could be a good thing. If Topix is going to become more political they better watch out. If there are unmoderated attacks on politicians with the type of stuff Topix currently allows to go on that will eventually lead to their demise. Politicans will take more notice of people's cries and the threats against them, more than likely going after Topix through litigation. Considering the fact, Facebook is about to go into the commenting system business, the smartest thing Topix could do is rethink what they allow and place more moderators on their site and go to a sign up type of registration immediately.

I wanted to address this.”Tolles, he’s almost bragged about how fiery and angry the comments on Topix can get, but now it sounds like he wants to temper that passion with a little more substance:”- If Chris Tolles wants substance, he is going to have to hire fair, trained journalists from Both sides of the political spectrum and have a fact-checking staff also, to verify their posts. This is called substance in media.”This stuff is incredibly juicy, without being salacious …”- I have read loads of salacious political comments on Topix, this is not true. “Getting a local take is important, and this is a way for our commentary-focused site to draw attention to issues which are controversial and comment sticky, in a way that national sites can’t duplicate.”- This is happening. The problem is there are political bully-trolls on some forums, who bully away commentators and put out lies and slander. At this point, Topix is often more like a nasty Gossip's conversation, than valid political discussion. Valid political discussion is happening on some Topix boards, but not on all of them. I can say that I have read some incredible political commentary on Topix, this is true. The potential is there, but the issue of moderation needs to be addressed.I would also like to address the point the author is making about Topix polls.”We spoke to Tolles back in October, shortly after Topix launched polls about every federal election in the United States, as well as local races in 37 states. Those polls received 200,000 votes and 100,000 comments”- I know for a fact Topix polls can be rigged, I have seen this done on Topix and often. Until Topix can declare all of their polls rig-free, this is not a valid method to garner political opinion. I would also like to address this:”So why the new political focus? For one thing, it’s a way for Topix to go after the growing amount of money spent on election advertising.”- Topix received more ad revenue this last election than the Washington Post. I recently discovered something else, a local Democrat who is running for re-election, had his ad banners ALL over Topix recently. I happened to know his campaign manager and of course, I asked her about this because he has been trashed on Topix in the past and there is no way he would choose this as a place to advertise. She told me they had NO idea, that their ad money was going to Topix, they paid for the ads via Google who promised to “distribute” them, but did NOT tell them that their ads were going onto Topix. The two are connected in ways they are hiding.

[...] 2011, VentureBeat reported on the early days of Politix after Tolles saw that people needed a forum for debate. Political polls [...]