During the Cold War the Armed Forces Television Network ran these great propaganda ads in Europe that highlighted the need to keep military activity in the region on the down low. One in particular was very memorable. The military spouse on the phone with another military spouse catches herself before revealing the location of a military training exercise. She says, “Hello, Boris.” The commercial ends with the all important message, “Remember, Boris is always listening.”
It stands to reason that with Facebook and Twitter adoption on the rise keeping military secrets might be a little harder than it was in 1989.
Earlier this week the U.S. Marine Corps announced a ban on social media tools on all government owned computers. The feeling in Washington is that government hardware should not be exposed to “malicious actors” that lurk on sites dependent on user generated content. I assume MySpace is also subject to the ban, but after the beating Newscorp took in Q4 I don’t think anyone cares.
In stark contrast the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) decided this week to allow its troops to use Facebook and Twitter without consent from the chain of command, as was the previous edict. Heck, the MoD even offers to sponsor blogs for willing volunteers.
When we civilians use Facebook to post pictures of our kids, there is little risk of injury to ourselves or others. I’ll promote this blog post on Twitter in a couple minutes and Bin Laden won’t bat an eye. I really don’t think Boris is listening to much these days.
We don’t have an opinion on this blog one way or the other when it comes to military freedom of tweet. There should be some interesting debate on this topic as the newly enlisted become increasingly tech savvy.
It does make you stop and think about how much and how personal the information is that we throw around today. Remember, Boris is listening.
