The social media no doubt speedens up the ability to send disinformation and certainly enables larger volumes to be spread at times. However the social media is still not as wide spread as some of you think. Its still not a reality in the fourth world or much of the third world for mainstream people. It is true cheap cell phones seem to be making their way now everywhere and a huge vehicle in political uprisings and events and the ability to mobilize people politically, BUT cell phone still requires a degree of technological literacy and for the masses in India or Africa or Asia or rural areas across the world living at subsistence levels, it might not be as wide spread as people think.
Prior to social media in the absence of information, rumours spread by word of mouth. Now they are still rumours but spread by technology.
The point is, whether we have faster ways of spreading information or not, what does remain the culminating factor is WHO CONTROLS that info. Power comes from the control over the dissemination of information whether its technological or not.
You can exploit silence and no technology as much as you can technology to control people. So I still think its crucial we ask and investigate who is controlling the info flow and what kind of info flows are there because social net is huge yes and shrunk the world, but tyranical behaviour hasn't really increased. For that matter we think terrorism is new but its just recycled behaviour we once called barbaric, i.e., something Vikings or Mongols did. "Barbarians" we called them because they had beards. They still do. Not much has changed. The barbarians or terrorists still don't shave.
Hang on a second, Justin Trudeau can't grow a beard. Leave him out of my analogy.