Status Update: I’m at War

Twitter and the military: the Pentagon wants to allow soldiers to use social networking while deployed. The Bundeswehr (German Army) opposes blogging from the front.

The U.S. Department of Defense is currently considering allowing its troops to use Facebook, Twitter and blogs. That’s the news as reported on the American news website Nextgov.

At present, the various Department of Defense branches have differing rules concerning personnel use of online social networks and blogs. In August, the Marine Corps prohibited their troops from using Facebook, saying they had concerns about network security. In contrast, the Army has expressly allowed use of Facebook since June of this year.

They seem to have no concerns when it comes to public affairs, however. Over 4,000 people follow the Defense Department’s Twitter messages. “Major C.” sends twitter messages from Iraq and Afghanistan and publishes the blog “A Major’s Perspective.” When U.S. troops killed two militia members in Afghanistan’s Wardak province in June, the military reported it on Twitter before conventional media got the story.

Greg Julian, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, says that Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are weapons in the struggle for public opinion. It is all about getting one’s own version of western engagement in Afghanistan out, and the number of people who get their information from alternative media sources is on the rise. Julian says we must try to counter the presumably false information emanating from the Taliban.

On the military’s Facebook page, soldiers can post stories and photos that would be unavailable to traditional media and give detailed reports on current developments. Julian describes it as an “unfiltered” opportunity for the public to interface with the troops. And since criticism is not censored, not every report is positive.

Comparable opportunities do not exist with the Bundeswehr. Public affairs spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, Klaus-Uwe Tautges, says that Germany “places a high value on a policy of open and credible information” but that they do not use social networking media, not even for special announcements. Official information directed to the troops is solely via an internet link that is closed to public view. “When it comes to informing the public, we post information on our web page ourselves and ensure that it is regularly updated,” Tautges said.

On the National Public Radio program Talk of the Nation, Price Floyd, expert in social networking for the U.S. Department of Defense recently said, “I think there are two issues that need to be balanced.” He went on to say, “In the past, when a soldier, airman, Marine sent home a letter to their family or loved ones and had information in it that might have been sensitive, it could have been read by two or three people, and that was it. The problem now with social networking is that when you Twitter that information that might be sensitive on your Twitter account or put it on your Facebook page, thousands of people see it immediately, and then thousands more could see it as it’s forwarded on to others. And so the ramifications of making a mistake, of putting things that shouldn’t be on there on those sites are even greater than they used to be.”

Most of the program’s listeners that called in to comment were sympathetic to security concerns. One caller, a female named Kira, said that she was in near-daily Skype telephone contact with a friend stationed in Iraq. She said “we’re very careful about the kind of information that we talk about. We don’t talk about what his unit’s about to do that day or what they have done.” When the moderator asked if they had been specifically asked to avoid such conversations, she replied, “No, I think we kind of know.” She also reminded family members of troops deployed in combat areas to be more careful with their private conversations with military spouses and avoid disclosing anything which might put soldiers in danger.

The blogger “Embedded in Afghanistan” who recently returned home after serving as a trainer for the Afghan National Army can also understand the military’s security concerns. In one posting, he wrote, “The Pentagon has every right to be concerned. Public opinion is decisive for battlefield success.” But he also writes that his blog is read by an average of 50 people per day and that it would hardly be worthwhile to try to censor it.

The British also blog extensively from their area of operation, Helmand Province. Major Paul Smyth of the British Army’s media team maintains the Helmand blog. A current posting reads “It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defense reports the death of Marcin Wojtak of the Royal Air Force Regiment.” This was followed by a lengthy text recounting the fallen soldier’s accomplishments and eulogies from family members.

The Bundeswehr isn’t quite so open when it comes to the death of its soldiers. A search of the Bundeswehr web site using the search term “Afghanistan” results in virtually nothing. A Twitter search for Bundeswehr soldiers also produces very little information. “Controlling the content of blogs and Twitter forums is impossible due to the large numbers of them,” says Arne Collatz-Johannsen, Army Spokesman for the Bundeswehr. Applicable rules for how soldiers communicate with the civilian public at large are already in place via various other laws such as the Soldier’s Act, and military personnel are obliged to “preserve secrecy in important matters” and “avoid anything that might damage the prestige of the military services.”

Publicly stated personal experiences of individual soldiers may have complex relationships attached that are not fully understood and thus may have unknown ramifications when repeated, says Collatz-Johannsen. “Those who publish their daily diaries express only their own views that may be only half-truths. A mosquito can quickly be transformed into an elephant and the contents of blogs may also be at the mercy of partisan politics.”

That’s why the Bundeswehr advises its soldiers to avoid using social media to express their personal opinions. Collatz-Johannsen also emphasizes that there is no formal prohibition on the books and that nothing has thus far required critical editing.

Thomas Schneider, webmaster of the Security Policy blog, mentions a possible reason for so much advance voluntary obedience: “If I were a soldier on active duty, I would personally like to have clearer regulatory guidance from the Bundeswehr,” he says. Currently, everything is so vague that an active duty soldier can only be sure he isn’t breaking the rules as long as he remains silent.