For safety reasons that should be obvious, US armed forces personnel have enjoyed limited access to social networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. But in an announcement made Friday (via Twitter no less) Price Floyd the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs said that the blanket policy with regard to social media was due for a change: “Alert. New Social Media policy to be announced at 1pm. Will allow access to SM sites but balance it with the need to be secure” he Tweeted.
So what’s changed? For one the new policy permits social media use within reason. That is, keeping in contact with loved ones – good. Geo-tagging bases – bad. Floyd also wants “more, not less” frontline blogging and has encouraged troops to share their stories online. The new policy also allows servicemen to browse “image and video hosting websites”, “personal, corporate or subject-specific blogs” and “Wikis”.
But it’s not all Chat Roulette parties and furious porn downloading, The Department of Defense will “continue to deny access to sites with prohibited content” and “prohibit users from engaging in prohibited activity via social media sites.” This is obviously good news for productivity but terrible news for racist perverts with gambling addictions because pornography, gambling and hate-crime websites are all prohibited. Sorry guys, no Storm Tube, Red Poker or Party Front for you.
Anyway in the exact same way Carrie Bradshaw would segue into the main premise of her terrible, terrible articles – this got us to thinking – what are the stupidest things that could spawn from social media use in the military? Of course none of the following would happen in real life and we have only the utmost of respect for the men and women of the armed forces but the internet is crazy y’all, so let’s speculate.
FOURSQUARE + WARFARE = WARSQUARE
Much like a life-sized game of Risk, countries could measure geographic boundaries and the success of inch-by-inch skirmishes by asking one simple question: Who is the Mayor of that rock over there on Foursquare? Makes sense right? When you think about it, Foursquare mayor-ship is the perfect metric for territory as it measures both the frequency and duration of occupancy in a certain place. Congratulations, you are now the Mayor of “Burnt-Out Jeep Chassis Number Two” that sort of thing.
FACEBOOK STALKING/SPYING
Who needs men who stare at goats when all the information you could ever hope to glean about someone is encrypted in their Facebook profile. The military could employ ex-girlfriends and boyfriends, the most skilled of Facebook stalkers, to infiltrate the profiles of their warlord former lovers and siphon top secret information. Then through a tangled web of fake profiles, badgering of known associates and reverse photo tagging maneuvers operatives could locate targets and literally shame them to death with tales of their sexual inadequacy.
TWITTER CODED MESSAGES/ TWIT PIC RECONNAISSANCE MISSIONS
Twitter is the ultimate platform for sending coded information because it’s already one big circle jerk of self-referential and seemingly humourless in-jokes. For example: “Gaz’s tattoos are freakin me out #miketyson” could be a 2.0 stoner referring to his friend’s hideous face tattoos OR it could mean (in Army parlance) Germany’s (Gaz’s) tanks (tattoos) are freaking me out (are freaking me out). Also Twitter’s Twit Pic feature, used primarily to shoot and distribute mad incriminating photos of drunken friends could be used by Soldiers to distribute mad incriminating photos of enemy infrastructure.
TROOP ROULETTE
One of the most civil and deeply human events of World War I occurred during the Christmas of 1914 when opposing German and British forces called a temporary truce in the name of yuletide cheer. Enemies mingled and even exchanged gifts then a few days later resumed warring on the Western Front. Almost a century later, the Web 2.0 equivalent of humane inter-army fraternization would be a special soldier-only version of Chat Roulette. Opposing Armies could work together to erect a special website that pulled users exclusively from Army Base IP addresses. The main purpose of the site would be to humanize the enemy and also deride strangers for no apparent reason, try in vain to see breasts and masturbate furiously into a webcam.
Via Wired
