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Pentagon relaxes restriction on social networking sites
by Jaspreet Virk - February 27, 2010 - comments
Pentagon has acknowledged that Internet is being increasingly used for recruitment, public relations, collaboration of people, and communication between troops and their families.
Reversing its policy regarding social networking sites, Pentagon has unblocked access to Facebook, Twitter, and other Web 2.0 sites for the U.S. military personnel.
The decision from Department of Defense (DOD) comes six months after U.S. Marine Corps had banned social media sites over bandwidth and secrecy concerns.
The ruling, which will allow everyone in the military, from troops in the field to the high ranking officers, to access blogs and social networking Web sites, applies only to military's non-classified computer network.
Underlining importance of social networking sites
Though there is growing concern over cyber security, the DOD believes that access to these sites is important as benefits outweigh the risks.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that unblocking access to these sites is imperative to enable Pentagon to interact with young soldiers who are in their 20s.
David Wennergren, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, was quoted by Reuters as saying, "The purpose of the policy is to recognize that we need to take advantage of these Internet-based capabilities. These Web 2.0 tools need to be part of what we use."
Weighing the benefits and the risks, Pentagon has acknowledged that Internet is being increasingly used for recruitment, public relations, collaboration of people, and communication between troops and their families.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has a Twitter account with more than 16500 followers.
Further, U.S. Southern Command has been using the micro blogging site to provide updates on relief activities being undertaken in Haiti.
Limitations of social media sites
The Defense Department was hesitant to give access to social media sites as concern has been raised regarding risk of information leak, potential threats from hackers, and possibility of overload of bandwidth on department’s network.
The department has more than 15,000 networks and uses around 7 million Internet technology devices, like computers, laptops etc. Its network is searched millions of times and is a popular target.
Considering this, Pentagon has allowed access to these sites with certain restrictions.
The ruling states that military personnel cannot access pornographic, gambling, or hate-crime Web sites.
"The idea is be responsible and use these tools to help get the job done," stated David Wennergren, deputy assistant secretary of defense for information technology.
The commanders will be able to temporarily block access to these sites in order to defend against malicious activities likely to affect defense network or military mission.