There’s a temptation when tragedy hits–especially violent tragedy–to use it to prove a worldview right as people take to Twitter to transform dead and mangled bodies into scaffolding under a preexisting belief. It’s execrable. Whether it’s a rush to assign blame, a speculation regarding motive, or an I-told-you-so matters little. That kind of stuff can play badly enough in a next day op-ed, but in an unedited 140 character tweet issued shortly after some terrible thing has just gone down, it’s pure poison.

—Mat Honan makes a strong case for how the best response to a tragedy, on Twitter or elsewhere, is to shut up.