Topix mountain grove mo Continue Mountain Grove, MO Town Square In a revealing article for the New York Times, A.G. Sulzberger describes how Mr. or Ms. Anonymous can destroy so far the peace and tranquillity of small towns where rumors remain forever . Websites created as a place for frank conversations about local news and politics are also centers of unfounded gossip, causing widespread resentment in communities where connections are deep, memories run long, and anonymity is something of a new concept. Take the town of Mountain Grove, Mo., where residents have moved from gossip around a table reserved for the Old Farts Club to Dee's place in vicious rumors and personal attacks at the Mountain Grove Forum, a social media website called Topix. The waitress, Phoebe Best, said the site provoked a fight and triggered divorces. The owner calls Topix a cesspool killing the character. It's the chef's story, however, that shows just how dirty, ugly and vicious the gossip has become thanks to Mr or Mrs Anonymous. Shane James has every right in the world to be very angry and very tense. His wife, Jennifer, was targeted in a post called Freak. Mr or Ms Anonymous described the mother-of-two as, among other things, a 'methed-out, doping-out slut with AIDS'. Not a word was true, Mr. and Ms. James said, but the consequences were quite real. Friends and relatives stopped talking to them. Trips to the grocery store brought a crushing flurry of knowledgeable views. She was crying all the time and even thought about suicide. Now the couple have decided to move. I'll never go back to this town again, Ms. James said in an interview at the diner. I just want to get the hell out of here. The abuse and bullying that bloggers and large citizens are used to and, unfortunately, are involved in the Internet, seems to have a deeper impact on the inhabitants of small towns, where everyone knows all the things. Sulzberg writes: . It often grates like steel wool in a small town where insults are not easy to forget. The forums drew condemnation from local authorities, a series of lawsuits and, in one case, criticism from relatives after a woman in Austin, Ind., killed herself and her three children this year. Hours earlier, she had written on a website where her divorce was a topic of conversation: Now it's time to relieve the pain. In Hayden, Kentucky (population 365), the local forum had 107 visitors at the same time one day this month. They clashed with posts about the school system, a new restaurant and local arrests, as well as news articles and political issues posted by Topix. But more typical were unsubstantiated reports, which identified by the name of an employee in the dentist's office as a house pest with herpes, accused the gas station attendant of being a drug dealer, and A 13-year-old girl was her mother's preggo man. Many of the accusations were followed by promises of retribution to those who started the post. Topix CEO Chris Tolle acknowledged that the biggest challenge they have is keeping the conversation on the rails. However, defending it on the grounds of free speech, he said the comments are ridiculous to read, make private gossip public, provide a platform for people who have negative things to say, and get it better for business. At one point, he said, the company tried to remove all negative posts, but it stopped after discovering that commenters had stopped visiting the site. It's a small city in America, he said. These guys hear voices about their friends and neighbors. A few friends, right? While Topix uses software to automatically verify offensive content such as racial slurs, others, such as apparent slander, are removed only after people complain. Despite the screening efforts, the site is full of messages that appear to cross the line. Topix, as an online forum, is not immune from libel suits under federal law, but those who post can be sued if they are found. The company receives about one subpoena per day for the computer addresses of anonymous commentators as part of a law enforcement investigation or civil lawsuits, some of which resulted in monetary judgments or settlements. Sulzberg's article brings up a few thoughts I've been mulling over for quite awhile. If people were to use their real names, would they be less inclined to go into attack mode? Will this tone down the rhetoric? Will they be more civil and polite? Will they be less inclined to lie? Will bullies be deterred from the abuse and oppression of others? I always felt that Mr. and Mrs. Anonymous were cowards, that if they couldn't hide behind Anonymous or use screen names, most could behave more like members of a civilized society. Of course, there are those who simply do not know how to do regardless of the type of public meeting. They are people who arrive at parties already drunk and urinate in the fireplace or vomit in a punch bowl or attack another guest. Editor's note: To read more articles by talented Leslie Parsley, visit her website, Parsley Photos. Mountain Grove Discussion Board If you consider everything you read, a woman named Joanne stole money from a dead woman's life insurance policy in Mountain Grove, Mo., while Melissa and Natasha in Pikeville, Ky.-the same Pikeville did the legendary Hatfields and McCoys-wearing wires and works as narcs for state prosecutors. Is any of this true? Just like an untested scuttlebutt makes the rounds of watering holes small and the back fences, caustic charges found the house online. Anonymous, unsaltable comments left on Topix discussion forums for Mountain Grove Grove Pikeville can make Gawker seem almost polite in its cutting coverage of urban gossip. The feuds once played out in diners in small towns and hushed conversations in local grange halls have attracted interest beyond their borders, including an article in the New York Times. We run Gawker for every small town in America, Topix CEO Chris Toles told the newspaper. Gossip in so much stereotype life in many small, American cities as fish fries and church social. But hidden by aliases online, it can go from a slightly nefarious distraction to a source of controversy in the community. In Mountain Grove, locals told the Times, gossip posted on Topix caused fights and divorces. At least one couple moved in and vowed never to return to town again. The site is the latest in a lengthy debate protected against harmful speech, and comes with fears that the problems of small towns could escalate into the national scale of previous social networking issues like cyber bullying. Stories like this distress me more than I can tell, Fred Shaker, web project manager for The Pew Charitable Trusts, posted in a Facebook status update. Are the benefits of anonymous comments worth the price that many people pay? Hyden, Ky. only has a population of 365 but at some points more than 100 people are registered on its Topix forum. The charges range from someone who gets a 13-year-old girlfriend's daughter pregnant to a discussion about whether someone is involved in drug trafficking or herpes. Mixed with gossip in many forums, however, is legitimate news and notifications about community gatherings, upcoming fundraisers and other events. For many small-town residents, the forums replace local newspapers that have either been reduced to bare-bones coverage or never existed from the start. The forums also offer citizens a place to discuss and discuss legitimate community issues. I'm just wondering why there is no playground equipment on Mtn. View Elementary?? Someone who has listed their name as a concerned parent posted in the Hyden forums. It is unclear how many posters of anonymity are guaranteed. Courts continue to fight whether subpoenas should be provided so that identification information can be obtained from site owners. (Generally speaking, forum operators like Topix are not responsible for having their users post, but their users can be sued.) Last year, the lawyer for a former Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter published a subpoena on a local media gossip site seeking the identity of an anonymous poster who made allegedly defamatory comments about his client. In 2009, Juicy Campus, which allowed college students to post anonymous gossip about classmates, abruptly closed, saying that the income did not expenses. A year earlier, New Jersey officials launched an investigation into a site they say may have violated consumers' consumers Laws because it does not enforce its own policy to prohibit offensive comments. But the courts can only do so much. Gossip has long been a staple of small-town life. The fact that it goes online just shows how inevitable this is. Share this article ,First published: September 20, 2011, 5:34 p.m. Continue reading the main story of Mountain Grove, Mo., where a web forum displaces visitors such as Dee's Place as a place for news and rumors. Credit... Steve Hebert for The New York TimesMOUNTAIN GROVE, Mo. - In small towns all over Ozarks, people like to say that everyone knows all the business - and if they don't, they're not shy about offering educated guesses. One of the established locations here for the day's gossip trade is Dee's Place, a country eatery where a dozen longtime residents gather every morning around a table constantly reserved only for members to sign for the Old Farts Club, as they call themselves, talk about the weather, politics and, of course, their neighbors.