Fresh from its battle against blogs, the U.S. military now appears to be going after video and social networking sites (at least those it doesn't control). Effective Monday, U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will not be allowed access to websites like MySpace and YouTube using military networks, Stars and Stripes reports. Although the ostensible reason is to conserve precious bandwidth, the articles notes: "Ironically, the Defense Department this year had just begun expanding its own use of YouTube to reach a younger, broader audience and show clips of U.S. troops in action." Officials appeared to claim the issue was bandwidth, not content:
“We’re not passing any judgment on these sites, we’re just saying you shouldn’t be accessing them at work,” said Julie Ziegenhorn, spokeswoman for U.S. Strategic Command. “This is a bandwidth and network management issue. We’ve got to have the networks open to do our mission. They have to be reliable, timely and secure.”
At the same time, however, a message sent to troops from U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. B.B. Bell also indicated that security issues were factored into the move:
“This recreational traffic impacts our official DOD network and bandwidth availability, while posting a significant operational security challenge,” he wrote.
Massive bandwidth-sucking PowerPoint briefings are naturally still allowed.