Serious business, indeed.

As the famous intentionally misspelled internet meme aptly puts it, “TEH INTERNET = SERIOUS BUSINESS!”

Usually this is tossed out on a message board or some other type of online forum to jokingly add perspective when a debate gets unnecessarily heated. As a former message board junkie (I went cold turkey this year for a New Year’s resolution), I know all too well how quickly things can escalate. A thread may start as a discussion about a television show or news event, but it can easily (and often) digress to exchanging personal insults.

Now it's one thing for adults to make crude jabs at each other online, but when minors are the victim of this, the results can be tragic. This is why our office found it crucial to join 33 other state attorneys general in an effort to keep kids safer from cyberbullying on the popular Internet message board Topix.com. Until now, whenever an instance of cyberbullying was reported it could have taken days for it to be reviewed (or expedited for a $19.99 fee) and sometimes weeks for the offending content to be removed. 

 With the agreement, Topix has promised to review all “flagged” posts in a timely manner, remove offensive content within three days of a report and to continue to develop new technologies and processes to better prevent the misuse of the site.

 So what begins as a legitimate conversation still may digress into the pontification of another user’s, ummm, intimate behaviors, but if it truly crosses into the realm of cyberbulling it won’t be tolerated on Topix.com thanks to this important agreement.

- Darius Schwarz, Public Affairs Intern