It's absolutely a huge issue. Social media allows fake accounts to spread falsehoods very quickly which influence people's perceptions. We've seen this with the Russian accounts. Older folks have been shown to have a harder time telling real news from fake news and have been especially targeted.
There's no "one" answer. Social media is a problem - the pipe bomb guy for example was reported by at least one TV personality who received a threat, and was told it didn't violate Twitter's terms of service.
However, the biggest problem is that unlike in the past, it's hitting the mainstream and it's maintaining itself in the mainstream.
Look at immigration. This guy was angered at a Jewish organization that helps refugees. He thinks refugees are violent people and "invaders" - that's just one small notch up from the rhetoric you hear from many mainstream politicians -- open borders, ISIS sneaking in, MS 13!, etc. ring a bell?
Look at the pipe bomber. This guy lapped up whatever Trump said. The same day as a pipe bomb shows up at CNN's headquarters, Trump later blamed the media for it and his rally was chanting "CNN sucks" - just like one of the bumper stickers on the pipe bombers car. He's called the media the enemy.
When Obama was running, we saw similar stuff online, right? Obama went to a radical madrasa for school, he was a secret Muslim, he wasn't born in the US. Not to mention it was coming from our current President, but what was the difference? John McCain eventually stood up and put his foot down around it. It was probably a helpful thing for his campaign, but he wasn't a "win at all costs" guy. Currently, we're in a "win at all costs" crisis mode.
The inflammatory lies are not just on social media, they're coming from mainstream politicians and even US agencies - this whole "ISIS are sneaking in as refugees" - comes from no basis of fact. And what does the DHS say? They don't actually answer the question, they just say broad things that doesn't really shoot it down, but if you actually dig into what they say, it's pretty clear it's not based in fact. DHS officials have to speak anonymously in order to actually say they have no evidence of this.
Our president says things that he sees on Fox & Friends instead of his own intelligence apparatus.
