It is very important that this matter be taken seriously very quickly. It is only a matter of time before someone is killed or commits suicide because of this hateful website.

There is a website named http://www.topix.com. Topix is intended to be a news forum dedicated to local towns and cities all over the world. For instance, you can use Google and search, "Van Wert, Ohio Topix", and you will come to Van Wert's own Topix forum. You can do this for most cities in the U.S. I'm just showing you Van Wert because it's my hometown.

On Topix.com they do have rules and guidelines that are printed that posters are supposed to follow. However, Topix does not require anyone to sign up, give their real names, or even submit their own email address therefore giving people the option to submit posts to this public forum and remain totally anonymous. People are abusing this in almost every way imaginable.

Topix administration does have a link at the bottom of their main page that allows you to report posts that break the rules set forth by Topix. However, because they do not require a person to sign up to make posts there is no way for them to ban a person from posting so what happens is once it's deleted the same person who started it will simply make another one and the hate continues. Also Topix is very slow at deleting anything and often times they do not delete it all.

I personally have been a member of many online forums and Topix is the ONLY one that I have ever been a member of that does not require you to register your account with a valid email address. The reason most online forums do this is to prevent this type of abuse in their forums. Once someone breaks their rules they are warned and then their IP address and login information is banned from their website. That makes sense doesn't it? Why does Topix not have this? This is what I mean when I say they need to reform or else be shut down.

I have done a lot of research on this website and what I have found has truly shocked me. In other cities there have been teenagers as well as adults who have committed suicide because of things said about them on Topix. In one case in Indiana a woman killed herself and her three children over comments made on Topix. This happens more often than you could imagine. A simply Google search of, "topix lawsuits" or "topix suicide" will give you more cases than you would probably care to even read about.

In my hometown of Van Wert, Ohio this is truly getting out of hand. People are saying all sorts of negative things about other people, their families, and even their innocent children. Numerous reports have been made to our city police department and numerous times people have been told that there is nothing they can do about it. Hundreds of posts have been reported to Topix administration and only a select few have been removed. I honestly wonder what it is going to take before this website gets taken offline. It's only a matter of time before someone in my city commits suicide or is murdered or hurt over things being said on Topix. Does it really have to go that far? I hope it doesn't. Please sign this petition and forward this along to your family, your friends, and anyone else that you can think of and ask them to do the same. The ONLY way we are going to be able to make a difference is if we all come together as a community and put a stop to this.

Gary Cates

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