U.S. Marines ban social networking while the British military embraces it
The United States Marine Corps and the British Ministry of Defense are taking two very different stances on the role social media can play in the military, but which is right?
Earlier this week it was announced that the U.S. Marine Corps has banned all deployed personal from using any form of social media. The order, entitled IMMEDIATE BAN OF INTERNET SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES (SNS) ON MARINE CORPS ENTERPRISE NETWORK (MCEN) NIPRNET (capitalization theirs), includes the following description: (again, the Marines capitalized it all)
2. BACKGROUND. INTERNET SNS ARE DEFINED AS WEB-BASED SERVICES THAT ALLOW COMMUNITIES OF PEOPLE TO SHARE COMMON INTERESTS AND/OR EXPERIENCES (EXISTING OUTSIDE OF DOD NETWORKS) OR FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO EXPLORE INTERESTS AND BACKGROUND DIFFERENT FROM THEIR OWN. THESE INTERNET SITES IN GENERAL ARE A PROVEN HAVEN FOR MALICIOUS ACTORS AND CONTENT AND ARE PARTICULARLY HIGH RISK DUE TO INFORMATION EXPOSURE, USER GENERATED CONTENT AND TARGETING BY ADVERSARIES. THE VERY NATURE OF SNS CREATES A LARGER ATTACK AND EXPLOITATION WINDOW, EXPOSES UNNECESSARY INFORMATION TO ADVERSARIES AND PROVIDES AN EASY CONDUIT FOR INFORMATION LEAKAGE THAT PUTS OPSEC, COMSEC, PERSONNEL AND THE MCEN AT AN ELEVATED RISK OF COMPROMISE. EXAMPLES OF INTERNET SNS SITES INCLUDE FACEBOOK, MYSPACE, AND TWITTER.
The order does go on to say that some exceptions can be made after one goes through a waiver process, but it sounds like it would only be for people with certain clearances, and not something that would be easy to obtain.
Now British newspaper The Telegraph is reporting that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has actually lifted its ban on social networking, and personnel are no longer required to seek permission to use any of the sites. The soldiers are asked, however, to “use common sense over the amount of detail revealed.”
A spokesman for the MoD told The Telegraph:
This [sic] about troops having a little more freedom, a little more autonomy. The MoD’s new common sense guidance allows service personnel to talk about themselves and their work online, within limits and with advice to protect their security, reputation and privacy.
While it seems unlikely that such a serious security order would be issued as a way for one country to thumb their nose at another country, it kind of feels that way. In the past there had been a ban placed on all U.S. military personnel in all branches, but that was lifted this year. The new Marine policy is just a reinstatement of that policy, just specific to them this time.
So what does this say about the faith the two governments have in soldiers using common sense in how much information is revealed online? Probably nothing, but the timing certainly makes it interesting to look at the two policies side-by-side and wonder how the two bodies came up with such clearly different conclusions on how much common sense each one’s soldiers have. Is one policy more correct than the other? Hard to say, but I would say I have to land more on the side of the Marines on this one as I really don’t want to think about someone in the fox hole with me being more interested in sending out a TwitPic than providing me with covering fire.
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