Since we had a rather strong response to our coverage of the Telegraph the British military’s take on Twitter at least is quite different. Once again this is not a ‘critique’ of what is right or wrong in the use of social media by the military anywhere. What we look to explore is how social media is viewed and its ultimate impact on how we communicate which eventually impacts how we do business online.
So the British policy is categorized as a liberalization of the use for British troops which apparently had been tighter until now.
Ministry of Defence (MoD) said that British troops are no longer required to seek permission to use the sites but asks personnel to use common sense over the amount of detail revealed.
The MoD said it would actively sponsor soldiers who are willing to tweet or blog about life in the military, with tips for engaging an online audience.
“This about troops having a little more freedom, a little more autonomy. The MoD’s new common sense guidance allows service personnel to talk about themselves and their work online, within limits and with advice to protect their security, reputation and privacy”.
That does read a bit differently than the USMC’s policy for sure. Some might argue that it gives too much autonomy to each soldier but we would need to learn what the guidelines are in detail before saying that the British military is truly providing complete freedom. It doesn’t seem that British troops have social media ‘carte blanche’ when reading between the lines of their statements. Policies are only good as they are enforced so we’ll need to see this in action before a fair assessment can be made.
What are your thoughts on this and social media policies in general? How do you suggest that each organization arrive at the rules and regulations that can make social media effective while simultaneously ‘keeping the peace’?
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