Source: Los Angeles Times The girl's father is quoted saying the alleged assailants lured his daughter into a trap "for express purpose [sic] of filming the attack and posting it on the Internet." And, of course, the attack was apparently a retaliation for mean comments the victim had posted on her MySpace profile. And now, local groups are apparently calling on video hosting sites to prohibit videos that depict fighting. There are many, many high school-age fight videos on YouTube. Just search "school fight" and order the results by date. Kids of all genders, colors, ages and nationalities are fighting, all over the world. And obviously, there's often a kid with a cellphone present to record it. But here's a moment to be wary of hasty conclusions. Before we turn into a society of cart-drawn horses that blames everything on the proliferation of digital and the consequent extinction of morality, let's wait until we get some science happening. In this case, you'd want to start with the question: Are kids fighting more frequently now? If yes, are a significant portion of those fights instigated so that they can be recorded? Or would those fights have happened anyway? And perhaps just as importantly, if you prevented kids from uploading fight videos to YouTube, would it decrease the number of fights happening in the first place? And if you shut down MySpace and erased all the hurtful comments posted thereon, same question. Why are YouTube and MySpace the primary suspects here? Why not the makers of the video camera the kids were using, or the electric company that supplied the power to charge it? If there were no electricity, would we see the number of schoolyard fights decrease? Not likely. Connecting new technology to violence is always a good way to make waves. Comic books, TV, movies and video games have all been put on trial -- and now it's the Web's turn. Trouble is, the more of those connections we make, the less convincing each one gets.