How the US Air Force deals with blogs

http://eaves.ca/2009/04/09/bureaucracies-and-new-media-how-the-airforce-deals-with-blogs/

by halo • 17 years ago

29 3 17 years ago

TomOfTTB• 17 years ago

The only problem I have with bloggers like this is they don't realize the Air Force is being benevolent with this policy. This guy wants to get people all "pumped up" about the unstoppable nature of social media by making it seem like the Air Force had to come up with a policy. But the problem is half the people he convinces will get fired because Social Media is not unstoppable.

Social Media is not going to destroy bureaucracy. If you work for a monolithtic company or a government they probably haven't discovered what social media is yet. But when they do management is going to treat it like any other form of media and threaten to fire anyone who uses it without permission. If you post anonymously they are going to hire a P.I. to track you down (like they do with news leaks now)

Social Media is a great tool and I personally suggest companies use it. But thinking huge companies and governments will be brought to their knees and forced is unrealistic.

Oh, and those who think there will be "too many social media users" to block are also being unrealistic. Once the threat of firing comes down 99.99999% of people won't do anything. Because the people who work for these huge bureaucracies are almost always the people who really need the job.

jrockway• 17 years ago

Incidentally, I was surprised to see such good advice. I expected "sic lawyers on site owner, send police agency to house of commenter", but instead it was "disclose your connection and reply with intelligent commentary that cites its sources". That is really excellent.

spitfire• 17 years ago

This seems like a fantastic common sense policy. Not responding to trolls and rager's is "old ecnonomy"? If so, count me as one of those fuddy duddies.

This isn't a big bureaucratic dinosaur at work here. That policy is a simple heuristic which lets the end node make correct decisions without any central c&c input.

Rather than the uncoordinated/incomprehensible written diarrhea you get from many bloggers this seems positively enlightened.

How the US Air Force deals with blogs

Related Stories