Blaming MySpace

I see up on MSNBC that 20 middle school students have beensuspended for some nasty and threatening content on a MySpace blog. By all accounts the postings and even the blog name are disturbing, so some action was probably warrented (by the school or parents – ‘nother question).

What gets me though is the natural tendency for everyone to blame MySpace for this:

“With what the students can get into using the technology we are all concerned about it,” Bob Metz, the district assistant superintendent of secondary education, said Wednesday.

What, really, did the technology have to do with this? Yes, it made the spread of the threats much faster, but in the end, this was about one student making threats against another. Whether it occured in online or in the hallways after class, the problem is in the child’s behavior and NOT in the technology used to communicate it.

I’m waiting for a “Ban MySpace” effort to kick off as a knee-jerk reaction to something like this.