China Bans Military Personnel From Blogging

eldavojohn writes "China has banned all 2.3M members of its military from blogging — even personal, non-military blogs. From the announcement of the new regulation: 'Soldiers cannot open blogs on the Internet no matter (whether) he or she does it in the capacity of a soldier or not. The Internet is complicated and we should guard against online traps.' While the official word seems to not be translated to English yet, the same apparently goes for websites or homepages owned by soldiers; there is no indication as to whether or not this applies to sites like Facebook or Renren (which the USMC bans). Similarly, as of 2007, the US requires active duty soldiers to clear any posting with a superior officer, and Israel had to cancel an operation due to a Facebook status update. A military blog aggregating site claims only a few Chinese military blogs indexed, but it looks like as of June 15 that list may have shortened."

Comments

Not Surprising

[WindBourne]

China is in a cold war with the west. The last thing they want is information leaking out. As it is, they make heavy us of spying in the west to come up with all sorts of offensive weapons that they can use. Sadly, the west is trying to be friends with China, but China is about to surprise everybody. The reality is, when you are the leader of the worlds largest nation (population wise), AND have a population that is about to be very heavily skewed towards males, what do you want next? The world. If nothing else, look at their military systems. Heck, look at their recent promise to allow the Yuan to 'float'. It floated for a day and then was restored. Then floated just a little bit downwards. Why? Because the TRUE leaders of CHina said NO.

Re:Not Surprising

[thoughtsatthemoment]

There is no cold war any more unless you say there is one. China is just trying to maintain it's political system while engaging the rest of the world economically. This is similar to Saudi Arabia. Some Americans seem to be uncomfortable or hostile toward China because they think China has the potential to challenge the US militarily. But that's a short sighted view.

Most people in China really do not understand the west at all from a philosophical perspective. I am not saying the west is good or bad, but there are indeed significant differences and they are quite obvious if people have the chance to see both. What's why the economical interactions between China and the west will eventually have a great impact on China and the rest of the world.

Re:Not Surprising

[WindBourne]

You missed the point. China is not economically open. They fix their money to ours; they have loads of trade barriers; They dump on western markets; they have massive theft in IP, weapons, etc. As to gov., China has a group of ppl that control and seek greater control not less. They are secretive about their military and their intentions. They are a totalitarian. Saudi Arabia is a kingdom. However, they are up front about what they want and represent. There is NOTHING similar between the two.

Re:A Natural OPSEC Move

[Pharmboy]

From what I've seen, this wouldn't be a completely insane idea to apply to members of the US armed forces.

Except that it is contrary to the US constitution. Yes, I know there are some "reasonable" restrictions on military personel (I'm ex USAF) such as going to protests in uniform (reasonable) but if you told everyone in the military that they are no longer allowed to have a personal webpage, blog or have a presence on the internet otherwise, you would have a mutiny on your hands.

It is in the military's interests to insure that those who serve are of good moral character and act responsibly. It is counter to the mission to completely censor free speech. While the statement "we are here to protect democracy, not practice it" applies to the chain of command, it doesn't mean that those who serve have actual rights taken away wholesale.

It has nothing to do with Afghanistan, or Iraq, or policy. It has to do with US personnel having the most basic right, that of free speech, taken away. This violates the First Amendment, and likely Due Process clause of the 5th Amendment since it can be perceived as a punishment (loss of liberty) for a crime neither committed nor where there is a conviction.

Re:A Natural OPSEC Move

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Yeah, OPSEC is a tough thing to enforce. When I used to be able to receive AFN, I remember constantly seeing OPSEC ads. Even pointing out simple stuff, like, don't talk about having to stock up on warm/cold clothing in public.

An interesting OPSEC anecdote. During the first Gulf War, a Saudi small shop owner told a reporter that the land invasion was about to take place. How did he know? All the soldiers were coming into his shop, and were buying lots of batteries. They were stocking up for the coming invasion he deduced.

So given that, someone is bound to give away something unintentionally on a blog or social site.

Awareness is the key to fighting this.