Social Media: More Harm then Good?

Over the course of the semester we have learned much about how social media and politics can be used for good or bad. We tend to read more about how useful social media is for everyone and in turn we see a lot more of the positive aspects of social media instead of the bad. Even though social media and politics can be good there are also many negative aspects to it as well. Social media can play a huge part in the direction a election is going or even have an impact on a countries progress. This is what we seem to be seeing in the Middle East based on an interview with Fareed Zakaria.

In this article, which can be found on CNN, we can see how social media is being used as a tool to create more harm then good between the Israelis and Palestinians. As Zakaria mentioned during his interview, "What I think is new here, which is very troubling, is that people are using the new tools of technology, social media, and your beginning to see radical fringe elements that are able to organize, galvanize support...... It's as if we sometimes think that these technologies are somehow going to make everyone get along and cooperate. And instead what's happening is that it's creating a poison within the body politics of both sides, and it's going to be very difficult to walk this down because it's out there now."

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2014/07/03/social-media-poisoning-middle-east-politics/

It makes you have to wonder how much harm social media can cause, not just to one person, but to an entire country. Social media can be used to spread more violence and cause more harm then good. The worst part about it is that the information that people post on the web is out there for everyone to see and it will outlive even us. Maybe there is something that can be done in order to help limit the amount of harm that social media can cause. It seems that there might be a possible solution but it would have to come down to the individual user to help prevent social media from causing so much harm.

What do you guys think? Do you believe that social media causes more harm then good? Why or Why not? Is social media poison? Is there a way to prevent social media from causing more harm then good?