2008 Woodie Awards
Defense Department bans Myspace, Youtube for soldiers
Tanya Ludlow
Issue date: 9/5/07 Section: News
Deployed soldiers and their families may have to find alternative ways of communicating with each other in light of the Defense Department's ban on accessing MySpace and YouTube on their networks.
In a memo released by General B.B.Bell on May 11, 2007, soldiers will no longer have access to the following 13 sites: YouTube, MySpace, iFilm, Live365, StupidVideos, Metacafe, BlackPlanet, Hi5, 1.fm, FileCabi, Photobucket, MTV and Pandora.
According to the memo, the reasoning behind the ban is that the recreational traffic impacts official DoD network and bandwidth availability and poses a "significant operations security challenge."
This ban follows new regulations on military blogs ("milblogs") and although military officials cite these new measures as crucial to freeing up bandwidth for official use and protecting sensitive information.
Critics are decrying the tighter restrictions as a form of censorship.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit organization that promotes the public interest involving digital rights, recently uncovered evidence that indicates milblogs release a fraction of sensitive information that may harm military operations than official military Web sites do.
According to documents released to the EFF through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the Army found no more than 28 violations on milblogs between January 2006 and January 2007.
In contrast there were at least 1,813 violations on 878 official military Web sites during the same period.
In an interview with EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann, said "Nobody denies that soldiers should be careful about what they say and the military has the right to keep tabs."
However, the documents make it clear that "more information is inadvertently leaked from official military Web sites than from bloggers," Hofmann said.
Hofmann emphasized the need to strike a balance between ensuring the security of military operations and allowing soldiers to express themselves and their lives on digital forums.
"The EFF doesn't dictate how much freedom soldiers should be allowed, we're just suggesting perhaps that there is no need to circumscribe speech even more and it is not justified by the information we have foun,"Hoffman said
Hofmann also stressed the importance of milblogs and social networking sites and pointed out that President Bush recently gave a speech on why milblogs are important.
"It is important for soldiers to post what their experiences are really like; to be able to bring the experiences to the average person is a very legitimate and important thing for soldiers to do,"Hoffmann said.
Far from impeding military operations in Iraq and worldwide, Hofmann points out that milblogs and social networking sites might actually have an important function because "they help personalize the military experience," Hofmann said.
For the time being, the regulations regarding milblogs and bans on YouTube and other social networking sites still stand.
In a memo released by General B.B.Bell on May 11, 2007, soldiers will no longer have access to the following 13 sites: YouTube, MySpace, iFilm, Live365, StupidVideos, Metacafe, BlackPlanet, Hi5, 1.fm, FileCabi, Photobucket, MTV and Pandora.
According to the memo, the reasoning behind the ban is that the recreational traffic impacts official DoD network and bandwidth availability and poses a "significant operations security challenge."
This ban follows new regulations on military blogs ("milblogs") and although military officials cite these new measures as crucial to freeing up bandwidth for official use and protecting sensitive information.
Critics are decrying the tighter restrictions as a form of censorship.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit organization that promotes the public interest involving digital rights, recently uncovered evidence that indicates milblogs release a fraction of sensitive information that may harm military operations than official military Web sites do.
According to documents released to the EFF through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the Army found no more than 28 violations on milblogs between January 2006 and January 2007.
In contrast there were at least 1,813 violations on 878 official military Web sites during the same period.
In an interview with EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann, said "Nobody denies that soldiers should be careful about what they say and the military has the right to keep tabs."
However, the documents make it clear that "more information is inadvertently leaked from official military Web sites than from bloggers," Hofmann said.
Hofmann emphasized the need to strike a balance between ensuring the security of military operations and allowing soldiers to express themselves and their lives on digital forums.
"The EFF doesn't dictate how much freedom soldiers should be allowed, we're just suggesting perhaps that there is no need to circumscribe speech even more and it is not justified by the information we have foun,"Hoffman said
Hofmann also stressed the importance of milblogs and social networking sites and pointed out that President Bush recently gave a speech on why milblogs are important.
"It is important for soldiers to post what their experiences are really like; to be able to bring the experiences to the average person is a very legitimate and important thing for soldiers to do,"Hoffmann said.
Far from impeding military operations in Iraq and worldwide, Hofmann points out that milblogs and social networking sites might actually have an important function because "they help personalize the military experience," Hofmann said.
For the time being, the regulations regarding milblogs and bans on YouTube and other social networking sites still stand.
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