The Army has ordered its network managers to give soldiers access to social media sites like Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter, Danger Room has learned. That move reverses a years-long trend of blocking the web 2.0 locales on military networks.

Army public affairs managers have worked hard to share the service's stories through social sites like Flickr, Delicious and Vimeo. Links to those sites featured prominently on the Army.mil homepage. The Army carefully nurtured a Facebook group tens of thousands strong, and posted more than 4,100 photos to a Flickr account. Yet the people presumably most interested in these sites – the troops – were prevented from seeing the material. Many Army bases banned access to the social networks.

An operations order from the Army's 93rd Signal Brigade to all domestic Directors of Information Management, or DOIMs, aims to correct that. Issued on May 18th "for official use only," the document has not been made public until now.

It is "the intent of senior Army leaders to leverage social media as a medium to allow soldiers to 'tell the Army story' and to facilitate the dissemination of strategic, unclassified information," says the order, obtained by Danger Room. Therefore, "the social media sites available from the Army homepage will be made accessible from all campus area networks. Additionally, all web-based email will be made accessible."

The operations order (OPORD) doesn't apply to all GI Bases overseas, or those run by the other armed services, which aren't affected by the decree. Nor does the order overturn the long-standing, military-wide ban on sites like MySpace, YouTube and Pandora. And it's almost certain some Army posts that still block the now-approved web 2.0 networks. Still, it's a click in the right direction for the armed service which seems to be making a slow but steady recovery from its lingering hostility towards social media.

The full OPORD, after the jump.

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

COPY ____ OF ____ COPIES d HQS, 93 SIGNAL BRIGADE FORT EUSTIS, VA 23604

18 1500 May 09

OPORD 09-14, WEB FILTERING STANDARD

References:

a. Signal Command Theater, OPORD 09-01, 100 Day Plan b. FRAGO 2 TO SECTION 6.2 TO TAB C TO APPENDIX 2 TO ANNEX C TO ARMY NETOPS OPORD 05-01(U) c. JTF-GNO ODM 059-07, IAP ACL/Security Filter Update for 15MAY2007.

Task Organization. N/A.

1. SITUATION: The Army has recently made access to several social media websites available from the Army home page within the .mil domain.

Access to these sites or a subset of these sites is available from some installations across CONUS and restricted at others. Similarly, web-based email is available from some installations and restricted at others. IAW 7 th Signal Command Theater 100 Day Plan, and in an effort to establish a web filtering standard for DOIMs across CONUS, the 93d Signal Brigade Commander directs all DOIMs to allow access to specific social media sites and access to web-based email from their respective campus area networks.

2. MISSION: Permit access to specific social media websites and all web-based email from the installation campus area NIPR network NLT 22 May 09.

3. EXECUTION:

a. Concept of Operations: IOT support the intent of senior Army leaders to leverage social media as a medium to allow soldiers to "tell the Army story" and to facilitate the dissemination of strategic, unclassified information, the social media sites available from the Army homepage http://www.army.mil, will be made accessible from all campus area networks. Additionally, all web-based email will be made accessible from all campus area NIPR networks in the 93d AOR.

b. Task to subordinate Units.

(1) All DOIMs will modify their web filtering systems to allow access to

the following web sites NLT 22 MAY 09 :

(a) Facebook, http://www.facebook.com

(b) Delicious, http://www.delicious.com

(c) Flickr, http://www.flickr.com

(d) Twitter, http://www.twitter.com

(e) Vimeo, http://www.vimeo.com

OPORD 09-14, WEB FILTERING STANDARD 15 1700 May 09

(2) IAW JTF-GNO ODM 059-07, IAP ACL/Security Filter Update for 15MAY2007, The document can be found at:

https://www.jtfgno.mil/operations/odm/2007/ODM_059_07/ODM_059_07.doc

All DOIMs will block access to the following sites:

(a) YouTube, http://www.youtube.com

(b) 1.FM, http://www.1.fm

(c) Pandora, http://www.pandora.com

(d) Photobucket, http://www.photobucket.com

(e) MySpace, http://www.myspace.com

(f) Live365, http://www.live365.com

(g) hi5, http://www.hi5.com

(h) Metacafe, http://www.metacafe.com

(i) MTV, http://www.mtv.com

(j) BlackPlanet, http://www.blackplanet.com

(k) StupidVideos, http://www.stupidvideos.com

(l) Filecabi,http://www. filecabi.net.

(3) All DOIMs, be prepared to make the necessary modifications to their Blackberry servers to allow mobile applications of these sites accessible and functional once STIG compliance is verified.

(4) Notify 93d Signal Brigade, Current Operations once completed via email at XXXXXX@us.army.mil

(5) Exemptions for other social media sites will be submitted in RFI format to 93d Signal Brigade Current Operations section at (757) XXX-XXXX, DSN XXX-XXXX, or XXXXX@conus.army.mil.

c. Coordinating Instructions: The POC for this tasking is Mr. XXXXXXX, 93d Signal Brigade, (757) XXX-XXXX, DSN XXX-XXXX,XXXXXX@us.army.mil 4. SERVICE AND SUPORT: N/A 5. COMMAND AND SIGNAL: CPT XXXXXX 93 d SIG BDE S3, DSN: 826-2664, Commercial: (757) XXX-XXXX Email: XXXX@us.army.mil

ACKNOWLEDGE:

GARRISON

COL

OFFICIAL:

Kuntz

S3

DISTRIBUTION: All

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

*[Photo: DoD]

*

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