The Military, The Government (of California), And Social Media

The government is gearing up on social media and setting guidelines on all sorts of level and in all sorts of ways.

James Dao over at At War: Notes From the Front Lines brings to our attention that the Military Announces New Social Media Policy

Many months behind schedule, the Department of Defense on Friday issued a new policy that, on the surface, seems likely to expand access to popular social networking sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter by troops using military computers.

The new policy, which can be found here, says that the default policy of the department will be to allow access to social networking sites from the military’s non-classified computer network, known by its acronym, NIPRNET (for Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network.)

The development is considered a step forward by advocates of social networking in the military. Those advocates have complained for years that local commanders, sometimes for vague or arbitrary reasons, have shut down personal blogs or restricted access to social networking sites that an increasing number of troops use to maintain contact with friends and families. A growing number of deployed units have also begun using Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and other networking sites to share photographs, release official information and disseminate newsletters. . . Read More

California wouldn’t want to be left behind in all of the hubbub. Although California is basically saying no to social media at the moment. Michael Rothfeld of the LA Times says in No spoofing — California issues social media guidelines:

Reporting from Sacramento – The state unveiled a Social Media Standard on Friday to ensure that its employees aren’t running amok on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the like.

“As with most technologies, there is a measure of risk that must be addressed and mitigated,” the state’s chief Information officer, Teri Takai, wrote in releasing the guidelines.

According to the Statewide Information Management Manual, Section 66B: Tweeting and Facebooking can hamper employee productivity, strain Internet connections, cause “reputational risk to personnel, the agency, and the state,” result in the leak of sensitive materials and more.

Cautious can be good, but social media use is a flood and just lumping on restrictions will fail, if for no other reason than that it smells of a restriction of free speech.

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Tagged as: Defense Department, Facebook, flickr, Social network, Social network service, Twitter, United States Department of Defense, YouTube