Twitter Facing Bans as a Security Risk
This blog entry was posted on August 11, 2009.
Over the past few weeks there have been a number of articles about Twitter and other social media being banned where secrecy and security breaches are major concerns. This ranges from the US Marines, Pentagon, NFL and mainland China. The workplace may be the next battleground.
U.S. Marine Corps has banned Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social media sites from its networks, as of August 3. They did this because of “high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries.” The fear is that social network sites create the potential for leaks of critical information to adversaries.
The Pentagon announced at the same time that it is reviewing the use of social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace) on its computers. They are looking at setting rules on how to protect against possible security breaches. The rules won’t affect use of social networks by personnel on personal computers outside of their jobs.
The Chinese government has blocked Twitter and Facebook after a demonstration for religious freedom led by a group of 1000 Uighur Muslims turned ugly and reportedly left at least 140 dead. The Government blamed micro-blogging as inciting this incident. In spite of this censorship, estimates are that 92% of the online population in China use social media. Compare this to the US where 76% of the online population use social media.
The National Football League is reviewing its social media policy with regards to players Tweeting from the sidelines of games. They have placed a ban on social media from the locker room to the press box and even the stands, as paranoid organizations are trying to protect their training camp secrets.
The workplace is almost certainly the next place for policies limiting the personal use of social media and possibly outright bans. Concerns over loss of productivity and work quality are at the heart of setting workplace rules.
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Filed under: Social Media Marketing
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 6:03 am and is filed under Social Media Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.3 Comments
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Doug – ESPN recently has distributed a memo to their employees banning the use of Twitter. It’s already happening in workplaces!
Interesting stuff..
Comment by Christian — August 11, 2009 @ 8:52 am
I just read that Michigan’s Supreme Court has now banned jury members from Twittering during a trial.
Comment by Doug Williams — August 11, 2009 @ 3:58 pm
The workplace is already on it, firewalls have a social media filtering in them to make it even easier for SME to do that
Comment by M.Bamieh — August 30, 2009 @ 2:38 am