Blue Collar Muse

Noah Shachtman reports the Brits have recently moved to blunt the journalistic blade wielded by members of its own military.

Blogging at Wired.com’s defense blog, Shachtman posts in ‘British Military Gags Blogs’ that the UK’s Ministry of Defence is following in recent US footsteps telling its personnel

Members of the Armed Forces and MOD Civil Servants must seek prior permission from [MoD media authorities] if they wish to communicate about defence via books, articles or academic papers; self-publish via a blog, podcast or other shared text, audio or video; take part in external questionnaires, polls, surveys or research projects, speak at conferences, private engagements or other events where the public or media may be present; or contribute to any online community or share information such as a bulletin board, wiki, online social network, or multi-player game…

[This] covers all public speaking, writing or other communications, including via the internet and other sharing technologies, on issues arising from an individual’s official business or experience, whether on-duty, off-duty or in spare time.

Given the value milblogging offers ‘netizens it is easy to understand why it is both feared and highly prized. One wonders, however, if the move towards erring on the side of censorship, by military organizations here and abroad, is the best strategy. What say you?

Noting that the sentiment which produced the maxim “A watched pot never boils!” is different from the one which believes “An unwatched pot will inevitably boil!” …

Blue Collar Muse

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Blogging, Individual Responsibility, US Military. 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.