Tweeting From the Front Line 84
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.'"
Re:Tweeting (Score:4, Insightful)
It can be useful if you find something interesting to follow. Hint Hint: @climagic.
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On the other hand, your posts are almost always far more inane than even the most inane twitter posts.
Re:Tweeting (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Twitter: a shitty email mailing list. (Score:1, Insightful)
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
Interesting-feed suggestions (Score:2)
http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays [twitter.com] 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 [twitter.com] (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)
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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.
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Okay, guts are coming out.
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Re:American "Freedom" (Score:4, Funny)
You mean "Loose Tweets Sinks Fleets" like in this poster: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctabu/3657942692/ [flickr.com]
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"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
Re:American "Freedom" (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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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.
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The military has policies in place, but spontaneous, synchronous commo lends itself to errant blabbing more than, for example, email.
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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
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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.
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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.
Brother in active duty (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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I can only imagine. I don't think most civilians understand the level of isolation that soldiers endure, even in peacetime. Add to that the stress of being shot at, and being able to talk to people back home has got to be tremendously comforting. As long as the troops are trained to safeguard operational security -- as if they didn't have a very strong incentive to do so anyway -- any risk has got to be outweighed by the boost in morale.
Anyway, best wishes to your brother. I hope he gets to see his nephew i
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Maybe in future we can have soldiers coming home after 5.
We do, and it's a problem. Pilots are flying 'combat missions' from Nellis AFB via satellite link to armed Predators. So they'll engage in a firefight, kill people (and watch friendlies/enemies people die), then come home to errands, soccer, and dirty diapers.
It actually causes a lot of stress the military is learning. There are a couple golden rules about communicating with home they teach spouses... a key one is don't bother the person deployed with the routine problems at home, they can't do anything
I can see it now (Score:5, Funny)
JUS KILD SUM HAJIS LOL !1!!
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The term "hajji" is a perversion of "Hajj", referring to the pilgrimage to Mecca:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj [wikipedia.org]
Misleading title (Score:3, Insightful)
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)...
Re:Misleading title (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do you define the front line in asymmetric warfare? Chances are those support personnel have just as much chance to get blown up by an IED while conducting a logistics convoy or from a mortar round lobbed at the base, and that is not even accounting for the growing number of support personnel that are doing traditionally combat roles... perimeter defense, access control points, roadblocks, etc.
A lot of my friends are infantry types that manage to tweet or get on facebook while deployed. We had decent internet access during OIF I back in 2003...
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I think a front-line is drawn between two people exchanging fire. If you are in a FOB, LogBase, TCP, or other established point.. you are no longer at the front-line. You are definitely in the vicinity, yes, but on it? no.
Ok, i think of it like this.. ammo goes to the front where it is fired at the enemy. If you are passing ammo forward, you are in the rear. If you are holding ammo in prep for a fight, you are near the front. If you are expending ammo and being supplied more (double points for re-suppl
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Spoken like someone who has never actually seen warfare in his life. There is no "front" or "rear" in Afghanistan, and there can't possibly be where there are not men in uniforms that can be clearly identified. In WWII you could confidently declare certain areas to be "front" or "rear" since you could identify the enemy as being present in certain areas. Not so in Afghanistan. You could be struttin down Disney Blvd on Bagram Airfield one second, on the largest and most secure base in Afghanistan, and the ne
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Military Tracking? (Score:5, Interesting)
With some sort of Algorithm could one not track troop movements and strengths then?
Re:Military Tracking? (Score:5, Interesting)
If fighting a more technically advanced and well organised foe this would be more important.
it's a tradeoff, morale vs intelligence leaks and the morale factor can be worth it.
Also I image you could also be mislead just as easily.
An intelligence channel which you know the enemy has access to is orders of magnitude less valuable to them than a channel which you don't know they have access to since once you know about it you can feed false info when it's useful to you.
it's why quite a bit of effort went into convincing the germans that enigma hadn't been broken when it in fact had.
Also troops on the front line who's necks are on the block as it were will tend to pay more attention to the stuff about loose lips sinking ships etc.
Re:Military Tracking? (Score:5, Funny)
With some sort of Algorithm could one not track troop movements and strengths then?
Yes its a simple algorithm, go to news.google.com and search for "afghanistan troop strengths"
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I find it odd that we are so worried about their morale and their day-dreaming of home when a job that they signed up for needs to be given 100% focus.
Yeah, because low morale doesn't interfere with a soldier's ability to fight at all.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
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or to put it another way
comms home is a way to prevent Sempter Fidelis from going to Sempter Psycho
that and telling a trooper that they will go home when X has been captured (and then turned over to more long term troops) and hes got a newborn??
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With some sort of Algorithm could one not track troop movements and strengths then?
Statistically speaking, not very accurately.
Reasons:
Engaged troops are not tweeting while deployed. We are talking people at a barracks and those locations are hardly secret.
Mobile units are not likely to be tweeting while on recon. A goat herder with a cell phone can just as easily report troop movements.
But let us assume there is some deployed tweeting going on.
A: We would first need to know the average # of tweets per troop given a time frame (lets say 1 hour).
B: We could try and gauge, via normal distri
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"DoD communicates with the public"??? (Score:4, Informative)
Ask Michael Yon.
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/ [michaelyon-online.com]
http://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage [facebook.com]
http://twitter.com/michael_yon [twitter.com]
Obligatory PA (Score:1, Redundant)
propaganda vs operational security (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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And all the people with internet access are the ones doing Club Med tours- not the ones fighting in the trenches and caves.
Right, because the people who fight in trenches and caves don't ever return to base.
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Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
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Psychological Tweet Warfare . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wikipedia.org]
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!
What the hell? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 moveme
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Well, that was an impressive assertion. Do you have any facts at all to back it up?
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Why not Tweet a couple of fake attacks to scare the bejesus out of the enemy?
Why not drop a whole bunch of bombs and scare them rightly so?
US army has a problem (Score:2)
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."
Facebook Updates (Score:1)
lolz gonna blo d crap outta sum other beyatches in tanks. ps I'm at 31.184609,65.912476 kthxbai!
Cell phones, really? (Score:2)
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.
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In more than one instance, troops, cops and other emergency services have found their personal devices, (cellphones, GPS and sometimes even weapons) very useful. In one case, I seem to remember that a cell helped stop an insurgent's bullet...OK, a rare and extreme example.
Thankfully, coalition troops seem to have better cell and satellite phone tracking capability than their current opponents.
Maybe avoid signing up for Google 'Latitude' tho...
A better question might be, why are we allowing cells to work in
captured (Score:1)
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.
@SquadB (Score:1)
Damn straight (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Twitter (Score:2)
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 [twitter.com]
tweeting from front line (Score:1)