Marines ban social network sites [View All]

[Heidi]

Source: Financial Times

Published: August 4 2009 20:48 | Last updated: August 4 2009 20:48

The US Marine Corps has banned social networking sites from its network, the first move in a broad reassessment of the way the Pentagon and troops are engaging with an increasingly open web.

The ban on popular sites including Facebook and Twitter is effective immediately and will last for at least a year. The corps said the reason for the ban was not to limit personal communications but rather to protect military networks from malicious code.

“These internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high-risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries,” the Marine Corps said in a statement.

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Reports surfaced last week that the Pentagon was considering banning social networking sites from the military’s networks. The crackdown was prompted by a warning from the US Strategic Command, which in July said it was considering banning social networking sites throughout the defence department.

Read more: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6bc60434-812f-11de-92e7-00144feabdc0.html