Many businesses that don’t rely on social media for marketing or a serious business purpose block access to sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Now comes the news the State Department and Defense Department are going to allow greater use of the two sites:
The U.S. Defense Department and State Department are allowing greater use of Facebook and Twitter, while warily noting that social media can be a boon for spies and “compromise operational security.”
Last week, the State Department released a manual (PDF) saying that personal use of Facebook and Twitter is permitted on work computers, and the agency “will not arbitrarily ban access to or the use of social media.”
It came with the usual caveats for employees: don’t disclose classified information; maintain a distinction between an official and personal account; and “be alert to the potential targeting of users for intelligence-gathering purposes.”
Hmm…
I don’t think this is a very good idea. First off, the policy is not uniform. So the Department of State and Defense will be allowed to access Facebook and Twitter, but the Department of Homeland Security will not?
If we have learned anything with the explosion of social media its that people put things on social media sites they should not. The last thing I want is for some State Department employee to throw out a tweet that has sensitive information contained in.
Granted, they could easily do the same thing at home, but at that point it is merely an issue related to the individual and not any government entity.
Do you agree? Disagree?
Adam Shields says
My understanding is that the Dept of Defense policy before it was changed required all staff, especially those in war zone clear every facebook and twitter message through a commanding officer before sending them, including personal accounts. That policy essentially required soldiers to not use social media, at all, personally or professionally. That is a serious issue for soldiers in war zones, mostly in the 18 to 22 age range and away from home, often for the first time. This may be too far the other way, but the policy that it was before was just not workable in this age.
JTK says
This is such a waste! I currently work for the DoD as an IT contractor. From what I have been told, more time and bandwidth is being wasted on this and I can only imagine the viruses, worms, etc this will cause. There has got to be a different motive for this. For big brother to get info?
Aaron says
I guess everybody wants to get into bed with Robin Sage… and I don’t mean the military exercise. ๐
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=robin+sage+experiment