British military encouraged to get online

As professional organizations become increasingly guarded about employees' use of social networks, British troops are actually being encouraged to use social media to talk about what they do--within limits, of course.

The Ministry of Defence has issued its Online Engagement Guidelines (PDF), 13 pages of recommendations for keeping in touch with friends and family via blogs, social networks, virtual worlds, and multiplayer games without endangering military personnel and activities.

The statement says, "Current and emerging Internet technologies, such as simple self-publishing, sharing of user-generated content, and social networking, are of growing importance to Service and MOD civilian personnel in their personal and professional lives." And the guidelines say service and MOD civilian personnel are free to talk about what they do for a living, so long as the content regards "factual, unclassified, uncontroversial non-operational matters." They must gain authorization from their chain of command if they wish to publish anything that relates to military operations, gives opinions about Armed Forces' activities, speaks on behalf of the service, or discusses "controversial, sensitive, or political matters." The guidelines even suggest that some employees should consider creating officially sponsored online presences to help communicate their work to the public.

Amid a litany of advice about what information should and should not be divulged under varying circumstances, the guide also reminds people to have a little fun, saying "Enjoy yourself. You have a great story to tell, and are the best person to tell it."

The announcement comes as the U.S. Marine Corps, and organizations including ESPN and some professional sports teams have put limits on how employees can use social media networks--if not banned the sites altogether.

[monkeyfun14]

This doesn't exactly look like encouraging it looks like more of a statement saying if you choose to get online follow these guidelines.

[jenguevin]

I disagree. If you read the publications, they are actually pretty positive about troops and civilian employees being active in social networks and online games for both professional and personal uses. And in several places they encourage people to think of ways that they can use social media to communicate with the public (basically as officially sponsored PR efforts). Of course, they can't make a statement like that without explicitly outlining what is and is not appropriate for those kinds of forums--hence all the rules talk.

[signal7svr]

Apparently, they missed the news coverage of the head of MI5 (or was it MI6?) getting publicity over his wife sharing everything with Facebook.

[EvanSei]

well I don't see how they are encouraging social networking sounds to me like they are saying talk about your job as long as it has nothing to do with what you actually do if you know what I mean

[n3td3v]

Dear all,

This kind of material should be sent to the family members as well in light of the MI6 chief wife on Facebook.

It's not just about the troops here, its relatives of troops and intelligence officials who should be briefed on conduct as well while interacting with loved ones in the profession, or talking of them on social domains online.

These guidelines are already a reflection of laws already in place such as Data Protection Act and The Secrets Act.

They should already know what the laws are, what this material is useful for, is guidelines for friends and families to read who aren't directly under contract not to speak of certain issues about folks in the forces and in intelligence roles.

This material should be snail mailed to folks who have connections with folks in the forces and in intelligence agencies of those it closely concerns.

Regards,

Andrew

[big8news]

not here in the usa they say military people they ban facebook myspace most others use to moch bandwidth here

[downer88]

Glad to see most people realize its not the troops giving out information.

[Been_there_Saw_it_before]

Wow! This is the organization that was studied by Parkinson to formulate his basic laws of organizations.

A person rises to his level of incompentancy and remains there.
Work expands to fill available time.
Any organization tends to expand, regardless of whether that is of any benefit.

And several more I do not recall correctly enough to quote.