Over the past couple days, millions of dollars have been donated to help Haiti through the use of text messaging. This will surely be chalked up as another example of the role that ICTs can play in saving the world. People with that view are right to be excited about what this signals – another example of technology lowering the transaction costs to doing good.

But it would be a mistake to believe that the good news is all there is.

As an example, Chris Blattman points to a recent paper [PDF] about the infamous “hate radio” in Rwanda that played a role in motivating the genocidal violence. By looking at the variety of radio coverage in villages (due to hills interfering with radio waves), the author concludes that “complete village radio coverage increased violence by 65 to 77 percent, and a simple counter-factual calculation suggests that approximately 9 percent of the genocide, corresponding to at least 45,000 Tutsi deaths, can be explained by the radio station.”

ICTs are a tool and it’s important to remember that other factors (people, geography) will impact whether they are used for good or ill.