Busy as I am then today? 

you contradict your self.  You start by saying the Arab spring was a positive out come of the use of social media and finish by saying should governments control social media.

If governements controlled social media would the Arab spring have happened?  If it is controled then you have an empire, that can make or break governments and objective impartial decisions are taken away

social media didnt encourage those that died to drink, it only gave loners the oportunity to drink in the cyber world instead of the real world

@Peaky: I disagree. Protection to end users or communities does not necessarily mean outright censorship and total control - the difference between govern & rule.

In the survey of 10,000 global internet users below, I guess it is the same people who request for Freedom of Expression who also form the majority in wishing for governance and some form of censorship and Kevin's question is no different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship#Internet_Society.27s_Global_Internet_User_Survey

Back to the original question:

Should there be policies that govern social media? I completely agree.

Should there be readily available protection to end users abused or tormented by herds of other users? I couldn't agree more.

If it appears implied I thought the Arab spring was positive this was not my intention, my intention was to not comment in favour or against. I merely used it an example of how powerful Social media is in a global scale. Apologies for the misunderstanding. 

I do disagree with the Nek Nomination point, many of the videos are recorded in a social setting by friends with friends, in pubs and such. The added peer pressure of hundreds of FB friends, Its catchment then grew to an enormous peer pressure riddled entity. Don't you agree If this trend had been identified by for example a central safety hub and further videos refused on upload it may have saved a life?

If I live next door to a pub, perhaps hundreds of my friends will be in there screaming up to my window, its my choice to turn off the tele and go to the pub first of all, its then my choice to drink exessively.

So if I ive next door toa pub or further away, its not the location of my flat that put the pint glass in my hand

I pray to lord there be some kind of control before my sons hit teenage....

At the risk of sounding frivolous, Mona, here's the advice from my sister who's 11 year old son has now cancelled all social media.

Whatever social media sites your son is on, then join it as well.  Then request friend invites from all his mates. Make silly comments on his facebook, tweet on his tweets, become his biggest fan. 

He'll be so mortified having "Mum in my network" that suddenly glueing wings onto model aeroplanes will look WAY cooler!