A year ago, 22-year-old Kwame Dancy was shot and killed. The headline: "Twitter Argument Leads to Alleged Murder." The story even quotes his poor mother as saying, "... that's crazy. I don't know what's going on with that Twitter thing."

What's going on with that Twitter thing is this: The news media always need a bogeyman.

When I was a teenager, it was metal music or gangster rap -- after the Columbine shootings, the first theory was that the shooters had been brainwashed by Marilyn Manson. Then there was a brief period a few years ago when it was Grand Theft Auto, complete with implied causation headlines like, "Teen Shoots Three After Playing Violent Video Game."

Today, the bogeyman is the Internet. If there's a story involving crime or violence against a child that has even the most remote connection to some kind of networked technology, the technology itself becomes the center of the story. The stories follow the same template as when they were blaming music or games, and they're equally rock-fuck stupid.