Someone is going to use this incident as evidence to support the claim that social networking websites are dangerous.
Lindsay’s father said the teens attacked her to make a video that might become popular on YouTube, the video-sharing Web site. But the mother of one of the girls arrested said Lindsay had provoked the other teens by threatening and insulting them on the MySpace social-networking Web site.
Teenagers use social networking websites. Teenagers commit crimes. As more teens use social networking websites, more teens who use social networking websites will commit crimes. No matter who started what, nobody deserves to be beaten up for a half hour. But look on the bright side… thanks to the hubris of whoever posted the video to YouTube, the lawyers for the defense will have a much, much harder time in court.