Pentagon Keeps Wary Watch as Troops Blog

Tomas Segovia
Soc 313-003
09/09/09
Blog Post #1

The New York Time published an article about military personnel who use blogging and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to stay connected with the outside world during a deployment. However, a lot of these service men are getting in trouble because their views and posts do not always agree with the official voice of the Pentagon. In fact, the military is split on whether they view blogging and other social media sites as a productive or destructive. There are some at the highest echelons of the Pentagon who use power of social networking to make members of the American military more empathetic, entice recruits and shape public opinion on the war. While others who believe that social networking sites make military computers vulnerable to viruses, hackers, identity thieves, terrorists and even hostile governments. So far many blogs run by military personal have either been cencored or shut down. The Army even requires bloggers to register with their commanding officers and submit blogs for review. However, some service personnel still want their voice and opinions heard and their only option is to create an underground blog below the radar of the Pentagon's watchful eye.

As we spoke about in class, this article is a good example of social control because the Pentigan is trying to control the flow of information of veterans war experiences. By cencoring what soldiers have to say they are resticiting others from knowing about their views and experiences. The internet gives these people a way to address problems to or about their command. It challenges the hierarchical top-down tradition of the military. For what? Public opinion. The military does not want to look bad in the eyes of the people so they censor and restrict the soldiers who disagree or conflict with their views. Im not sure what is going to end up happening with this situation, but i do know that those on the frontlines have an important story to tell. One that needs to be heard more than the story the Pentigan is willing to tell.


References
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/us/09milblogs.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp