Butthurt Bully Boo-Hoos

Topix CEO Smacks Hallburn With First Amendment

We knew something was up when PutnamLIES.com started receiving visits from USA Today, Gannett, McClatchy and Topix looking for the truth about Halburn. We had a pretty good idea what it was all about. And now we know for sure.

Topix.com is the ghetto of the internet. It is an online forum that allows people to post any comments they want about any subject, under any name they choose. Mark Hallburn has used over 200 of them on that site, started many topics and participated in every single conversation that mentions him there. When the heat gets to be too much, Anti-First Amendment "publisher" Mark Hallburn has Topix pull any negative comments about him off the forums. Which, of course is what every discussion that mentions him has plenty of. For some reason, people hate Halburn.

After Hallburn harrassed the legal department of Gannett's USA Today, which partially owns Topix.com, they finally coughed up Topix CEO Chris Tolles' email address. Halburn then proceeded to harass Tolles via email, complaining about what Hallburn calls libelous comments and impersonation posts, never mentioning that he participated in most if not all of the discussions concerning him.

Then yesterday, Hallburn wrote a story about how Topix has been rather rude to him.
The entire story is outright deceptive. It's the definition of a lie. He is completely delusional.

What Mark left out of his story is how abusive he was to this guy. We're guessing dozens of emails and phone calls. Notice how Hallburn never prints the any of the emails in their entirety. He picks and chooses the lines he wants to use to make him look good or Tolles look bad.

Well, none of the excerpts do either. Halburn comes off as a petulant spoiled child that doesn't like the fact that someone is calling him names. He can't accept the fact that people have just as much right to talk about him as he does about them.

The main thing Hallburn left out is his participation in all of this. Many of the threads he's referring to were started by HIM. He starts this shit and then runs away when it starts getting too deep for him. You can't be a victim if you keep coming back to participate, Crisco.

Tolles repeated much of what he told Halburn.

We asked how Halburn had the right to silence other users.

"That's not how it works. He doesn't get to gag the users to not talk about him. In any case, we have no legal responsibility to do anything for him and "impersonation" in this way has little standing in the court system. We have a right to run our business as we see fit, within the law. Giving people a platform to say what they want is what America is all about."

Tolles then goes on to say this about impersonation posts, insults, and comments about children:

"Only the second of the threads he references contains someone impersonating him. The first thread is full of insults towards him, and unless there is some sort of actual libel, I see no reason to take it down. Referring to him isn't actionable according to the law, our policy, or common sense. In 2012 everyone is to one degree or another, a public figure. In general, he doesn't get to control the speech of others talking about him."

Tolles goes on:

"Impersonating is different from mentioning him. And, as it happens, we usually remove people and posts for impersonating someone. Insulting him, mentioning him, making fun of him and basically using us as a platform to express negative opinions about him - unless they're libelous, or about children, we side with freedom of expression. If he complains a thousand times to us about someone who said something that is merely a negative opinion, we're still not going to remove it. It's not his call. And, when he sends me a set of threads and says that there are people impersonating him when there aren't, makes me feel like he's lying to me or trying to get away with something. I really do not understand why he thinks he has a right not to be talked about."

We think it's funny that a guy that registered a screen name to impersonate Tyler Hollywood is bitching publicly about someone impersonating him.

Then Halburn complains that one impersonation used the name of his stillborn daughter.

You used the name of the little murdered boy Logan Goodall and you have the balls to say someone "impersonated" your daughter?
FUCK YOU HALBURN!

Did you tell Tolles that you did exactly the same thing when you used the name RememberingLogan? And then when people rightfully excoriated you for it, you had those posts pulled?
It never seems to bother you to trot Sarah Nicole out whenever YOU need a little sympathy or you want to call attention to yourself.

Tolles continues:

"It's virtually impossible to prevent a particular phrase or topic from being discussed. I can't review every post before it goes up or guarantee that your name won't come up. That's actually not on the table as an option.The price society pays for the world wide web being interactive is a lot of trash talk. And if you are a publisher, clearly you are aware of these issues."

Halburn goes on to claim that he filed a claim with WV Attorney General's office. For what?
Nobody violated your civil rights.
"Fat white divorced guy" isn't exactly a protected class.
Most of their civil rights/human rights stuff focuses on discrimination, particularly in employment and housing. Did you get kicked out of your dumpster? Maybe you have a claim there.
They're not like personal attorneys who go after mean people on the internet.
Darrell McGraw is a hack and a whore and will do or say anything for a vote, but doing your dirty work is not one of them.

What do we think the deal is? We think he probably called the AG office so many times they made up shit to get him to stop. He's filed numerous complaints with them and his tactics are well known at the Capitol.

Halburn goes on to say that while even the mainstream media allows article comment posts using fake names, PutnumLIVE.com would never allow that. Really?
How about Earl MacArthur, John T. Reed, Randall Scott or Tom Potter?
They were all fraudulent names used by Halburn in his letters section.

He says he requires real names but apparently it's OK with him if the content of the letters is plagiarized. As long as you've got some sort of ID to send him, you can copy whole articles from somewhere else, sign your name to them and he'll publish them, no questions asked. Conservative yahoo Alice Click is the biggest offender in this matter.

Halburn says " if you want to voice your opinion on PutnumLIVE.com in a dignified manner, you can provide a Letter to the Publisher using your real name. After we verify who you are, your letter will be published (without libelous comments, of course). PutnumLIVE.com supports the public discussion of issues. We also believe in social responsibility, as well as protecting familes and children. So, we leave the trash talk, about people, to the trash blogs."

Unless it's Halburn talking about Joe Haynes, Steve Andes or any other elected official, government worker or their families.
Then it's OK in his book.

Less than eight hours after all his whining, all of his bitching and moaning, Halburn starts another thread on Topix under the name No Eagloski. He posted the following story and comment:

Anytime you see a phrase about sending a politician packing, you know it's Hallburn.
Again, you can't play the victim when you start it, shithead.

You know what we think happened?
Tolles saw right the fuck through Hallburn's bullshit. He was having none of it.
He had his team pull IP addresses and it didn't take long at all to find out Mark was very, very guilty and it didn't take long for him to see right through it.

If the CEO of Topix was a woman, Hallburn would be planning another "travel feature" to Washington DC.

You got TOLD, fatboy.

Halburn, you're an America-hating communist pussy. The First Amendment contains no provision anywhere that reads, "This applies only in matters Mark fucking Hallburn sees fit."

PutnamLIES.com demands you immediately resign your blog, shut it down and be barred from the internet for life. You have zero credibility!

Now get the hell out of town.