Journal 5, June 7

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090602/wr_nm/us_afghanistan_twitter

Today's social networking craze has reached into the realm of the US military. Recently announced, the US military has begun to Twitter. Huh, what in the world does that mean? The thriving "tell everyone your business" website, Twitter, has attracted the attention of Americas Armed Forces. Recently officials have begun to post actual events that have recently occurred in the Afghanistan campaign of Operation Enduring Freedom. Tweeted on Tuesday officials had to say, "Afghan & coalition forces killed six militants in Paktika Province overnight during a (sic) operation to capture a Taliban commander." This new strategy has come about for a few different reasons. One is to counter the technological advance of the insurgents and their ability to harness the internet and text messaging. And finally this new social crave allows the US military to release unfiltered, genuine news from the war without the obscured view of today's media and the propaganda of the extremist. These social network releases are capable of releasing information before the it gets to the main stream media. Not only has Twitter been in use recently, but military officials have also begun to utilize Facebook and YouTube. Officials have encouraged troops to post photos and videos of daily life on the available forums. I see this overall trend as being very effective. Having been recently deployed to Afghanistan myself, it is nice to finally be able to hear real time events from the mouths of those that were there. I believe that Tweeting these small details will arouse peoples curiosity to hear the entire story and not just the filtered media that is often displayed. Perhaps more useful will be the Facebook and YouTube sites. These will allow for more information to be displayed and often from the actual soldiers themselves. Though it is inevitable that a lot of negative can and will come from this, perhaps it will influence the mainstream media to share more of the story to match these feeds straight from those involved. With all the positive affects of social networking in this case, I can not look over a few negatives that I believe are present. What about our information security? Will to much information slip at? How do we filter certain post? I ask myself these questions in regards to the possible negative affects. Perhaps one day to much information will surface at the wrong time and cause a ripple effect. It is inevitable that the insurgents have also grasped the power of the internet and can access these feeds as readily as any other individual. In the end, time will only tell of its outcome but I believe it is a very smart move on part of the military officials to stream this news first hand.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g41GPGQo0ehUaEaDv-ePcqqrXf_AD98I49BG0

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/06/us_military_in_afghanistan_tur.html