Topix.com is Another Example that Civility is Dead
When we were looking to “go Web 2.0” with the Chief Marketer Network’s Websites back in 2008, the topic of article commenting came up. The team that was assembled had asked if there were any vendors who had a plug-in that would work with our site, or if we should look at some sort of a comment aggregation service to facilitate the process.
My advice then: Don’t go with Topix.com. It’s a cesspool for bottom-feeding Internet trolls who have nothing better to do but cowardly hide behind aliases and leave racist, homophobic, libelous, slanderous, tasteless, classless and downright rude comments on every article it attaches itself to. And apparently the publications that use Topix.com do not have the ability to remove those comments, no mater how much its reputation can be damaged.
Topix.com sunk to a new low this week, giving consumers to self-serve privilege to remove racist, homophobic, libelous, slanderous, tasteless, classless and downright rude comments left about them… for a $19.95 fee. That’s just as disgusting as the trolls who have helped spearhead the death of civility on the Internet.
Well the attorneys general of Connecticut and Kentucky are looking into this. But Topix.com CEO Chris Tolles says the attorneys general are “grandstanding.”
If you read what was posted on the blog Hartford Courant Alumni Association and Refugee Camp, that’s the kind of person Tolles is.
How damaging can these sick comments on Topix.com be? I wouldn’t be surprised if Topix.com is partially to blame for this gruesome case of animal abuse and child neglect. The accused’s husband was killed in a car accident about a year earlier. Here’s the Topix.com comments thread from the Newsday article (which is no longer online) about the accident that took the life of Darren McDonough.
It’s got to be hard enough to suddenly lose your spouse. But then to see that kind of trash written about him? Yeah, I’m not defending her for what she did, but I can understand it if Topix.com made Sharon McDonough snap.
So here comes the question: How do you monitor comments coming into your blog or Website – or for that matter customer reviews to your e-commerce site, to assure you’re not leading to the death of civility on the Internet?
