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Tweeting From the Front Line
blackbearnh writes "There's an interesting article up on O'Reilly Radar talking about how the US military is reacting to the increasing use of social media by soldiers in hostile territory. In an interview, Price Floyd, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, talks about the trade-offs between operational security and allowing soldiers and the public to interact, and how social media has changed the way the DoD communicates with the public. 'I think that we need to become much more comfortable with taking risk, much more comfortable with having multiple spokesmen out there, thousands of spokesmen in essence. But, for me, there's nothing more credible than the men and women who are out there on the front lines, fighting the wars that we're in, sending messages back to their family and friends.'"
It can be useful if you find something interesting to follow. Hint Hint: @climagic.
Right now my brother is in active duty in Afghanistan, and the fact that they have internet from their barracks is huge for their morale, and for the morale of his wife and my parents. The level of communication we can have with him is beyond what I imagine people in any past war would have dreamed possible.
He got to see his new nephew who was born while he's been deployed thanks to skype.
JUS KILD SUM HAJIS LOL !1!!
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
It should be Tweeting From Just Behind the Front-Line.
The Front-Line folks are too busy getting shot at to Tweet. It's the support folks who get to do the tweeting (and have all the other fun)...
With some sort of Algorithm could one not track troop movements and strengths then?
Ask Michael Yon.
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/
http://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage
http://twitter.com/michael_yon
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
On the other hand, your posts are almost always far more inane than even the most inane twitter posts.
Loose Lips Sink Ships, girlyman.
Here's what I said on the subject in a similar BoingBoing thread recently:
If you really think that Twitter is terrible and causing the downfall of civilization or whatever, that's just a sign that you're not subscribed to the right feeds.
There are tons of feeds by brilliant, creative people like Peter Serafinowicz who really use the medium to its true advantage. The feed shitmydadsays, for example.
Also, if you have a small group of family and friends who have been scattered to the four winds for the usual reasons, it's a lovely way to be connected to them daily in an asynchronous, casual way. Perhaps you're lucky enough to have everyone you care about in the same time zone, but a lot of us are not that fortunate.
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/3/19/
"It's hilarious that American troops, who are supposedly from a culture that emphasized "freedom" and who are supposedly fighting for the "freedom" of other people, basically have all of their freedom stripped away"
Operation security means denying the enemy information. While communication and warm-fizzy exchange with the home folks is important, real-time chatter about trifling subjects is not.
There are two kinds of conversations from a military theater, "Emergency" and "Bullshit". Bullshit can wait.
Modern commo rocks (and is MUCH nicer than snail mail and moral telephone calls of old, been there and done all the above) but if you can't temporarily disconnect the electronic umbilical cord now and then, GTFO the military and let someone else get that sweet career path and tasty benefit package.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Morale has been an issue in every major war.
Even hardened soldiers can get a boost from the occasional bit of bullshit conversation with the girlfriend/wife, the folks or the kids.
I think they're trying to avoid stuff like this:
tedstriker: My squadron ships out tomorrow. We're bombing the storage depots at Daiquiri at 1800 hours. We're coming in from the north, below their radar.
elainedickinson: @tedstriker: When will you be back?
tedstriker: @elainedickinson: I can't tell you that. It's classified.
he talks about the trade-offs between operational security and allowing soldiers and the public to interact,
Let me rephrase that for you: they're torn between the need for operational security, and using soldiers for good PR. Otherwise, the press wouldn't have had to fight tooth and nail to be allowed to attend or photograph the ceremonies where dead soldiers are unloaded from cargo transports.
Blogging/twittering is just the modern version of the WW2 propaganda films. Look at our romantic heros, off to fight for justice and democracy! Look at our gritty, determined fighters putting up with horrible conditions and a bitter enemy! Give a voice to front-liners and you see what narcissistic people in the war want you to see. For example, the IED that gets blown up on the side of the road harmlessly...not the one that kills half the soldier's friends. And all the people with internet access are the ones doing Club Med tours- not the ones fighting in the trenches and caves.
One only need look at that attack helicopter video to see the stark difference between reality and what soldiers and the military want us to see.
Please help metamoderate.
Being in the military and deployed during the first and second rotation of Operation Iraqi Freedom (which was during the dawn of MySpace and Facebook just 'starting' to get popular when I was heading back to the states), I think my opinion would hold some weight as to say there are very few tradeoffs unless you make sure soliders Twitter and Facebook profiles are private and stay that way. I think with that, it would be no more insecure than having a weak password associated with your web-email account.
E-mail may not be 'cool' anymore to do, but it works and it's effective. I think the U.S. military caves on this because they share the same belief I do: it's a lost cause and too hard to corral. If you discipline or 'educate' your enlisted folk not to use it, some officer is going to break their own rules and do it and it's *always* going to be too-much-information leaked.
If you have 'that' much free time on your hands in a war zone, as a solider, to be updating your profile and status on social networks several times a day, you probably have absolutely zero business being there in the first place.
Before the Normandy invasion, the Allies used fake radio traffic, to convince the Germans that the real invasion was coming to Pas de Calais by an army led by Patton: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fortitude
Why not Tweet a couple of fake attacks to scare the bejesus out of the enemy?
Enough of these, and the enemy won't be able to determine who's who, and what's what.
C'mon lazy ass psych-op guys! Get on it!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
launches a strike at Arizona.
Yours In Juarez,
Nick Haflinger
tedstriker: @elainedickinson: After I get back I'll meet you in the armoury. The code to get in is 66537, I'll bring the condoms.
It's hard to control all those foot soldiers with access to broadcast tech. So they have to educate them how to lie as well. For example, do not use "snipers" when referring to an american soldier, use "sharpshooter". Sniper sounds too bad. Also, do not use the term "the country we are conquering", use the phrase "hostile territory."
lolz gonna blo d crap outta sum other beyatches in tanks. ps I'm at 31.184609,65.912476 kthxbai!
Exactly why are US troops carrying *personal* communications devices during military actions? Sure makes it easier for the enemy to track the troops, what with all the radio traffic from cell phones.
Oh right... military intelligence.
Also, if you have a small group of family and friends who have been scattered to the four winds for the usual reasons, it's a lovely way to be connected to them daily in an asynchronous, casual way.
Yeah, back in about 1993 or so I set up an email mailing list for my family. It's just like twitter, except it's private, and we can type more than 140 characters if we need to.
We can actually access it from more places than we can access twitter (some of my relatives work at places where twitter is blocked, but our mailing list's web archives aren't blocked, and their email isn't blocked).
Anyone can send to it whenever they want, and the other subscribers asynchronously get the emails when it's convenient for them to do so.
Operation security means denying the enemy information.
Much like companies that have non-disclosure agreements and stand to lose billions if they are broken, I'm sure the military can come up with some guidelines about what you can and can't say on social media sites. It's not like soldiers can't or don't use the telephone, so there's already a way for them to spread information inappropriately.
Which category does Army Maj. Hasan fall into?
Okay, guts are coming out.
what happens when cellular are captured by the enemy.
This is Sgt R Soldier's twitter, stay tuned to al Jazeera at 7 pm local time and watch his head get chopped off.
more tweets to follow.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Loose Lips Sink Ships, girlyman.
How do you know that "he" isn't a manlygirl?
You mean "Loose Tweets Sinks Fleets" like in this poster: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctabu/3657942692/
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
@SquadB Contact Right, Fully Engaged, Send Help lol? Like the MRE pix btw!
And that's what the Pentagon is trying to balance: the desire for morale boosters, without violating OpSec.
Hell, even saying "talk to you in a week" broadcasts to enemy inteligence officers that your division is likely deploying for a week where you will be off-line, and to track you.
In other words, the Pentagon needs reasonable standards for what constitutes 'loose lips' which may 'sink ships'. Obviously Twitter is the worst possible medium if OpSec is your goal.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
Can we change the mod points from "-1 Troll" to "-1000 Douchebag" I'd say about 95% of the military is smarter than you. Trust me I'm very smart and had no problem risking my body so you could have the freedom to be a douchebag
All this social networking tech has a flip side as well. Today's troops are comfortable with virtual relationships, and there are purpose-driven 'chat rooms' on the secure networks.
Now, a pilot flying close air support (CAS) over a certain zone can go to the chat the night before the mission and have a chat with the Army liaisons and they can exchange low-level info about what's going on. Then the next day, there's a connection between two groups that will never meet.
"Back in the Day" CAS was an anonymous plane you either cheered or cursed. Now it's a known in both directions. The pilot might start trying to get assigned to same areas, etc.
There's tons more lateral communication going on now in various communities (intel especially) than there ever has been before. And that's a good thing...
So if you allow troops to use the stuff, then the military can leverage that familiarity in "work-oriented" equivalents.
Yeah, serious OPSEC concerns, but considering how much is broadcasted right now through public media ("military starting offensive in Al XXXX in 2 days, tells civilians to evacuate"), what really is the risk for normal missions??
Posting AC because I can't remember my password. My son is a SGT in the army - infantry, a QRT platoon. We get to chat with him almost everyday when things are "calm". If there are deaths in the battalion then they all go on blackout for a couple days while the immediate family is notified - because it is very important to the military that notifications of death are not confused or communicated inappropriately.
Being able to see him through skyp and hear him is really the only way my wife has been able to remain sane through this deployment - and having my daughter-in-law and grandson staying with us while he is away and them being able to communicate continuously keeps his spirits up as he still gets to see his son grow up (age 2), even though it is from afar.
Quote from Heartbreak ridge - "not knowing is the worse"...
Hardly the only democracy (or republic if you want to be picky) to do that.
EN SVENSK TIGER
You're obviously not smart enough to realize that I'm not an American...
That's an outlier... they are found in just about any group of data points.
In Afghanistan, we are not battling an army that has the same technology we do. We're battling an indigenous people who have been at war for fifty years, either between themselves or against an invader. Unfortunately for us, the only people they hate more than another tribe is foreign invaders, i.e. Americans.
They are holed up in caves, stocking up on ammunition and resting until they have enough weapons, ammo, and food to launch another assault. Or they are building IEDs and monitoring regular troop movements to plant and detonate them. Their singular goal is to kick us out, and eventually they will. You can't occupy a nation, especially one as battle hardened as Afghanistan, when they don't want you there in the first place.
Tweet all the fuck you want. They are reloading no matter what lame psyops scheme you have cooked up.
Imagine if you were defending your homeland. What wouldn't you do?
During a previous excursion into sandy bloodletting, under Bush The Elder, one of the few completely trustworthy accounts I got from the battlefield was a letter from the son of a co-worker. She was kind enough to share with me.
There had been a friendly-fire incident that made the news. All the news accounts didn't seem to make sense. Everybody was spinning the story every way they could, madly, with little regard for truth. This mom, knowing her son was in the same group as the incident occurred, asked him about it. His letter, recieved well after the media circus had died out, was perfect.
What I mean was, the man was *right there*, 20 yards from the source of the friendly fire. He was *right there* pulling dead Americans who had just been killed by other Americans out of their vehicles. And his story of who was where and when they did what was the only account of that situation that I had ever seen that actually made sense.
Once you get off the front line, stories of war accrete bullshit until they're unrecognizable as even possible, much less the truth.
It's great to hear that, like any communication channel, that Twitter can have quite serious purposes. I've noticed a bit myself in a much less grave context - for example, Twitter noise on the matter has sometimes been the first to point out various news stories to me.
And even if your main use for it is another way to goof around, then what's wrong with that? :)
http://www.twitter.com/KingAlanI
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays eh? Nice one. Some apparent crudity, but had some darn useful things to say if you can see through that. [FWIW, I'd say something similar about South Park]
http://twitter.com/RevRunWisdom (yeah, that's the Run from Run-DMC :P)
Even if you aren't much for religious messages, a lot of his stuff just plain makes sense.
(I'm KingAlanI on twitter as well; I'm not going for serious inspiration, LOL)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
The military has policies in place, but spontaneous, synchronous commo lends itself to errant blabbing more than, for example, email.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Trust me I'm very smart and had no problem killing innocent children and raping women so you could have the freedom to be a douchebag
There. Fixed that for you.
Also, if you have a small group of family and friends who have been scattered to the four winds for the usual reasons, it's a lovely way to be connected to them daily in an asynchronous, casual way. Perhaps you're lucky enough to have everyone you care about in the same time zone, but a lot of us are not that fortunate.
My brother spent a year and a half in Iraq. We used facebook, google chat, or even video conferencing to stay in touch. A year and a half is a lot longer than it seems when someone you care about is in harm's way. Social media for soldiers is an awesome thing if used appropriately.
The war was popular because we were fighting a man as much as a country.
Vietnam was a war NOBODY liked (except the REMF who didn't have to slog through the jungles and rice paddies). The main reason the war was unpopular was information. The war was on the TV every night, even though the military tried to suppress it, there it was, even parts the military wanted to suppress went out. Everybody of my generation saw a little girl running down a road without any clothes on, an officer from the NVA blowing out the brains of a suspected VC spy, and let's not forget Lt. Calley. He was a scapegoat, but the massacre did happen.
I've done my time, it was relatively easy compared to others, and I wish to hell all these guys come home in one piece and standing up. But, shit always happens and when people are denied the right to know about it, the shit turns out to be humongous.
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
I think this is a great idea. It gives us real time feed of what is going on and the events the soldiers are experiencing right then and there. It also gives their family members a sense of what is going on with their loved ones and if they are ok.