Semper Facebook

The US Marines issued an order Monday that bans social media sites including Twitter (Twitter), Facebook (Facebook) and MySpace (MySpace) on its network. Apparently the sites increase the risk of sensitive information leaking out to adversaries, per their order.

The ban, which will last a year, essentially rules out use of all public social networks by Marines, unless a mission-critical need exists. The fully-capitalized document reads, in part:

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.

That’s not to say that the Department of Defense is turning its back on social media, however: a new DOD site with social media integration is expected to launch this month, as I read on Wired. Meanwhile, the Marine Corps Facebook page has more than 75,000 fans.

For most Marines, however, such sites will be off-limits from now on, but they can frequent them while off-duty on their personal computers all they want.

Now the Ministry of Defence in the UK is definitely allowing their soldiers to use social media. They only ask that the soldiers should apply “common sense” when deciding what to share online. MOD has also said it will sponsor soldiers who want to use blogs and Twitter to share stories of military life with the outside world.

mashable