Generals and admirals are powerful people. Their decisions determine the course of thousands of lives, with aftereffects that can affect millions more. Their budgets that can dwarf those of entire countries. Their words are parsed like the Talmud for clues about the future of American warfare. And they absolutely cannot tweet.
Twitter may be nearing 200 million users worldwide. But the military has a love-hate relationship with microblogging: the Marines, for instance,
banned it last year, along with other social networking services. But communications officers are coming around to the argument that it’s a tweet-or-be-tweeted-about information world. If the military doesn’t use tools like Twitter to spread its message, the argument goes, it’ll risk losing control of stories and influencing people. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has become a prolific tweeter as
@thejointstaff, weighing in on
controversies like the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal. The result: over 32,000 followers.
Mullen, alas, is an exception. Twitter and flag officers still generally go together like oil and water. It’s a new medium, after all, and no one says they’ve got to go ALL-CAPS EVERYTHING like Kanye or get into tweet-fights with detractors to use the medium well. But for some, the growing pains are apparent, even if we’re not seeing any Direct-Message Fails. (Full disclosure: the Pentagon asked me a few months ago to share some thoughts about social media at a recent forum.) Just because you can set up a Twitter account doesn’t mean you use it well. Here’s our guide to some of the lamest military Twitter feeds.
August 9, 2015 - 0400 Hours
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