Networks and emotions have been running hot at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation today after the broadcaster launched an online discussion forum on the World Trade Centre attack.

In less than three hours after the forum was launched at around midday AEST, more than 500 messages had been posted on the discussion forum site.

ABC network editor Stephen Rapley told ZDNet Australia the national broadcaster had been forced to assemble a three-person censorship panel dedicated to removing -vilification and obscenity" from the site.

No figures were available, but Rapley said the censorship team had been forced to remove a significant proportion of messages.

-There are high passions," he said of content submitted to the online discussion group.

Customers of internet service provider AOL Australia took to creating their own message boards in droves, according to spokeswoman Jennifer Parker.

-They've created hundreds, literally hundreds (of message boards) and posted thousands of messages to them," Parker said.

She said it was impossible to determine how many message boards were currently hosted on the site.

-They're changing by the minute and constantly growing," she said.

The message boards, accessible to AOL members only, went unmonitored and AOL would only intervene if notified of inappropriate messages by other participants, Parker said.

-Message boards are an opportunity for people to have their say," she said, adding that the majority of today's messages have been -comments about the tragedy" and Australians sending their thoughts to those in the US.

Global message boards hosted by rival Yahoo had also been hit by a surge in traffic since the early hours of the morning, according to a spokesperson for the company's Australian operation.

The US-headquartered ISP had been forced to haul in extra servers to cope with the high level of demand following the tragedy, the spokesperson said.

The ISP's Australian operation also hauled in extra servers after receiving warning from the US of surging Web traffic levels, they said.

-A huge amount of people are using the message boards for communications services such as instant messaging," the spokesperson said.

In the US, Yahoo reported one message board received a staggering 25,000 individual messages.

Traffic on the Internet company's US site - including site visitors logged onto online video and audio footage - surged to 40 times usual traffic levels in the hour directly after the tragedy occurred, Yahoo said.

The ABC is currently developing a separate -guest book" Web site to publish condolences related to the attack.

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