5 Reasons the Marines Shouldn’t Ban Social Networking
Today, the United States Marine Corps announced that it was banning its Marines from using social networking on the job. Citing security risks, the Marine Corps has said that it will block and ban social network sites while Marines are on the job, but doesn’t stop them from doing so when they’re not at work.
To me, this seems to be a case of letting a small bad outweigh a large good. While I understand the desire not to expose Marine networks to hackers and not to expose secrets to the world at large, these are problems that the Marines and the military face on a daily basis. Simply banning the use of social networks while at work will only move the problem to a less scrutinized venue.
Here are 5 reasons that the Marines shouldn’t ban social networking:
- The security risks aren’t going away. People are going to use their social networks at home if they’re not being used at work, so the same secrets will get out regardless. These transgressions will range from a slip of the tongue to intentional OPSEC violations but if these occur on government computers, then there’s a better chance that they’ll be caught sooner than if they occur at home.
- It sends the wrong message to today’s Marines. The bottom line interpretation of this message, to the average Marine is “we don’t trust you.” While today’s Marines and soldiers are being asked to do more at lower ranks than they were in the past–a large amount of responsibility being placed in the hands of teenagers and twenty-somethings–this message implicitly says that for all of the responsibility, there is still no trust.
- It sends the wrong message to potential recruits. Recruiters want to go where the recruits are, and most of them are on social networks. Not allowing social networking sends the message that the Marine Corps is backwards and antiquated and doesn’t care about what it’s like to be a youth in society.
- It keeps the Marines from knowing what’s being said about them. Social media is turning into a major media outlet, and it’s often one that has a different take on events than mainstream media. By banning the use of social networks, the Marine Corps has hamstrung their own public affairs office from both telling a good story about the Marines and knowing what is being said in the arena of public opinion about them.
- It stifles a culture of innovation. Terrorists continue to innovate, and as is pointed out in the NDIA’s own magazine, “to defeat terrorists, the military must innovate and disrupt [them].” By banning the use of an innovative means of collaboration and interaction, the Marines suppresses the culture that leads to the innovations needed to win post unilateral hegemonic conflicts.
I predict that in the end, the Marines, the Pentagon, and the government will come to some sort of compromise that allows limited usage. Giving up rights is part and parcel for live in the military; hopefully the sacrifice doesn’t come at the cost of leaving a generation of future cyberwarriors behind.
November 8th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Thanks for this, I’ve been mucking around for an hour and just realised that I forgot to run the ImageMagick executable first, doh!
August 8th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Matthew, there is a significant error in fact in your first sentence above. The Marine Corps did NOT ban Marines from, “using social networking on the job.” As made clear in the AP article you link to, what the Corps did was to ban “the use of Marine network for accessing such sites as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.” (See also the USMC order itself at http://www.marines.mil/news/messages/Pages/MARADMIN0458-09.aspx) It is a key point that SM is still available to our Marines and other servicemembers – on duty time, even in the forward-deployed areas – via non-military networks.
October 18th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Ok, here are a few things you either didn’t know, misunderstood, or misrepresented (which it was or if it was a combination of the above or other factors isn’t really important). I will discuss each of your points consecutively.
1)You say the security risks won’t go away, and that they will remain just as large, and possibly be less monitored because it’s not at work.
There are a couple issues with this: The primary security threat is that many social networking sites are security risks to a computer (and its network’s) data. Whether by adding an app to your profile (apps can see a lot about your profile and computer, and can easily be written to outwardly do one thing, while at the same time attacking your network for information theft or viral attack). The other issue (which also is a flaw in some of your later points) is that the marines aren’t trying to stop service members from personally divulging military secrets through these sites (intentionally or accidentally). They don’t care what the marines are posting really, that’s not the issue. They don’t want want their computers accessing such insecure sites. Use of these sites at home won’t be through military networks or on military computers, which is why they only applied their ban to military computers.
2)The main issue with your “we don’t trust you” complaint is the same as the latter above. They’re not worried about what the service members are posting, they’re worried about the cybersecurity of their military networks. The ban and issue has absolutely nothing to do with trust. Period.
3)Yeah… still the issue that they’ve done nothing about blocking personal use of social networking sites at home or on personal computers and networks. This ban is pretty similar to the ban that most employers have on the ability to play online games while at work. Online games can be created and run by anyone, which can be a security risk to the company, and also it’s a complete waste of their employee’s time. Why should a marine be allowed to mess around on facebook while he’s supposed to be working? It’s a waste of the military’s time and resources, and efficiency is a really big deal at all works, and in the military especially. What the individual marines do on their personal time is no bother of the Marine Corps.
4)This argument is an utter fallacy. It has nothing to do at all with what the ban entails. The ban prevents personal use of such sites. It’s not like the Marine Corps has decided that they’ll not use any social networking sites or other internet means to advertise or promote the service or such. There are still official Marine Corps pages on those sites. Their management is carefully controlled and not done through the same military networks for which strict security is a concern.
5)This is even worse than the 4th point. You’re suggesting that the use of facebook and twitter somehow is a means of creative collaboration through which technical and tactical innovation will occur? That’s absurd. There is an enormous difference between innovation in social networking and self expression and innovation which is militarily significant. Letting marines cruise around on facebook, commenting on funny pictures of their friends while at work will not help the US defeat terrorism, as nice as that would be.
October 20th, 2009 at 10:59 am
@Devil’s Advocate: Thanks for writing out such a thoughtful reply.
To address #1 (and by inference #2), I can see the reasoning behind your point. Still, the computers should be secure enough to prevent the app issues that you reference. To me, it’s a hammer hitting a fly in response, and I’d think that the military would be a little more fluent in the measured response department. Still, I’m willing to cede that one (those two?) because I really think that the bigger issue is still trust (3-5).
I think that your response reflects a lack of time walking the lines, in a motor pool, what have you. Ever seen a soldier take a smoke break? These kids are working their butts off trying to protect us. I expected my soldiers to get the job done, whatever that job was, and my job was not to micromanage them along the way. If we had NCOs always on soldiers’ backs telling them to work, efficiency would suffer a heck of a lot worse than what you’re implying. I don’t think that your argument for 3-5 addresses what I read as the implication for the ban. Your argument addresses the idea that Marines should be at work when they’re at work and at home when they’re at home–a separate thread in my mind since we were always “on call” unless we were on leave–and my argument is that this ruling implies that the Marine Corps is telling their Marines that there’s no trust.
With regard to the collaborative environment, do you really think that the Marine Corps is fostering one with this ruling?
It seems that we both want the same outcome – a military that effectively defends our interests and don’t agree in how to get there, so thank you for your comments and thoughtfulness!