At Ease, Soldier! Facebook, Twitter In the Army Now

Now, in addition to defending our country, U.S. Army soldiers can “tweet,” post on Facebook and much more. The Army has lifted its ban on some social networking sites.

That’s not to say these sites have been off-limits to all members of the Army. PR people have shared stories in the past and those links are featured on the Army’s home page. But concerns about soldiers posting anything and everything about their doings has been a concern.

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, which actually became official last month.

Overseas operations are exempt from the new privileges. And not every social networking site is OK. MySpace is still a no-no. And other Web activities, like uploading videos to YouTube, is still forbidden.