Pentagon Blocks MySpace & YouTube

The Defense Department has decided to make it impossible to reach 13 Web sites from its network, citing an overabundance of “recreational traffic.”

The ban also includes Metacafe, IFilm, StupidVideos, FileCabi, BlackPlanet, Hi5, Pandora, MTV, 1.fm, live365 and Photobucket.

The NY Times reports:

In the policy released today, General B.B. Bell, commander in South Korea, said use of those sites “impacts our official DoD network and bandwidth ability, while posing a significant operational security challenge.” The memo is available in pdf format.

A spokeswoman for the United States Strategic Command was more specific in framing the issue as a technical limitation. “We’ve got to have the networks open to do our mission. They have to be reliable, timely and secure,” Julie Ziegenhorn said in an interview with Stars & Stripes, an independent newspaper published for the American military.

Private internet connections still have access, but most troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are limited to Pentagon service, Stars and Stripes notes.

Today’s Web site ban and last month’s revision of military blogging policy were partly justified by operational security concerns. Both also prompted questions about whether leaders were trying to reduce the voices of individual soldiers by making it more difficult to publish their own material.

The ban also arrived as the American military started to increase its profile on YouTube, posting official footage that aimed “to show another side of operations in Iraq beyond news reports of ‘the car bomb of the day,’” the BBC said.

A writer for Wired Magazine told The Associated Press that individual soldiers were also helping to present a more positive picture of the situation in Iraq. “They are muzzling their best voices,” Noah Shachtman said.

Iraq To Bar Press From Blast Scenes

Iraq's interior ministry has decided to bar news photographers and camera operators from the scenes of bomb attacks, operations director Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf said on Sunday (local time).

^{Iraqis jubilate next to a burning Danish military vehicle near Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, 550 kilometers (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 14, 2007. A Danish soldier was killed and five others were injured by a roadside bomb Monday in southern Iraq, the army said. An Iraqi interpreter was also injured in the explosion, which occurred as the Danish unit was on a routine patrol in several vehicles near Basra, said Maj. Kim Gruenberger of the Danish Army Operational Command. The injured soldiers were in stable condition, he said. (AP Photo / Nabil al-Jurani)}

ABC News reports:
His announcement was the latest in a series of attempts to curtail press coverage of the ongoing conflict, which has already attracted criticism from international human rights bodies.

"There are many reasons for this prohibition," he said.

"We do not want evidence to be disturbed before the arrival of detectives, the ministry must respect human rights and does not want to expose victims and does not want to give terrorists information that they achieved their goals.

"This decision does not imply a curtailment of press freedom, it is a measure followed all over the world."

International and local media coverage of Iraq's deadly sectarian conflict generates dozens of images and reports of carnage every day, as insurgent bomb attacks continue.

U.S. Military Takes Iraq War To YouTube

The US military has taken the war in Iraq into cyberspace, with the launch of its own channel on the video-sharing website YouTube.

The BBC reports:
Its 25 brief clips include footage of US soldiers firing at unseen snipers in Baghdad, handing out footballs to Iraqi children and rescuing an Iraqi family injured by an explosive device.

In two months, the Multi-National Force-Iraq channel has climbed to 16th in YouTube's most subscribed-to listing and has, the military says, just passed the 1 million video views mark.

With titles like Battle on Haifa Street and Iraqi Boy Scouts Prepare for Jamboree, the clips are intended to show a "boots on the ground" perspective of Iraq, a statement on the site says.

The channel is also a perhaps belated attempt to move into the territory of Islamist extremist groups which have used the internet to post footage of hostages or attacks on US forces.

But, sceptics ask, will it give audiences a truer picture - or is it just an attempt by the US military to shift the focus in Iraq to the positive developments it accuses the mainstream media of neglecting?

Cyberspace battle

Lt Col Christopher Garver, a spokesman for US forces in Iraq, told the BBC News website the project's initial motivation was simply to get the "great footage" being shot by the military's combat cameramen in Iraq out to a wider audience.

However, it also serves to show another side of operations in Iraq beyond news reports of "the car bomb of the day", he says - and to counter the messages of anti-American sites.

Lt Col Garver acknowledges the US military has been slow to try to combat the influence of extremist groups on the internet.

"The cyberspace battle space was not one that we were particularly operating well in," he says. "This was one of the first public steps into that cyberspace."

The footage is not picked specifically to show the military in a good light, he says, and is only edited for reasons of time or content too graphic to be shown on YouTube.

And while all the clips currently posted have been shot by the military's combat cameramen, soldiers and marines have been invited to submit their own clips.

Spin or reality?

As on any YouTube channel, viewers are free to comment positively or negatively on the clips posted on MNF-Iraq.

Remarks are usually only taken down if they are profane, Lt Col Garver says, and not because they are critical of the military.

"About 80-90% of the comments left generally approve of what we have done in terms of trying to get information out into the public domain.

"Generally we see a lot of debate... and in an open society debate is a good thing, so we tend to try to let it go."

A look at the comments posted beneath the clip Troops Give Gifts to Iraqi Children reveals a wide range of opinion.

One viewer posts a one-word reaction: "Propaganda."

Another says: "No matter how you spin it, it is a 'Winning the hearts and minds' campaign. We did the same thing when I was there. Yes it's to pass along a gift, but also to buy them off so they don't toss grenades or other explosives at us or into our compound."

A third viewer responds: "When I was there I spent like an hour a day blowing up soccer balls for those kids, not buildings. Unfortunately our media is too busy selling the idea that we are 'bombing buildings', so all you know us as are baby killers. Unbelievable."

Chasing the enemy

There is no shortage of comment on the US-led war in Iraq already posted on the internet.

However, there has been debate about how much freedom active-duty soldiers should have to blog on their experiences, with some officers concerned it could impact on security and morale.

The defence department has now blocked access to sites including YouTube on its networks, meaning servicemen overseas will not be able to watch them unless they use private computers.

The military has said the move is intended to improve the efficiency of its networks by reducing traffic on its bandwidth.

But what is the reaction in the blogosphere to the military establishment's own move into the internet "battle space"?

Blogger, writer and former US soldier Bill Roggio says it is really just an extension of the US military's attempt to reach the public through mainstream media.

"It's really a smart move. One thing that al-Qaeda does very well is put its own videos of attacks on Americans or Iraqis up on their own websites. They dominate that terrain and they get the hits."

By getting a good YouTube and Google rating, the US military will improve the chances of theirs being the first site people go to when they search on topics relating to Iraq, he says.

"They are very slow, very behind the times in things like blogs," he argues. "But they are starting to move forward and recognising the medium - they have to, the enemy is doing it and they have to counter that."

The military wants to shift the focus from the many car bombs in Iraq

Mr Roggio - who has been embedded with the military in Iraq three times since the 2003 US-led invasion - says he is willing to give the US military the benefit of the doubt over its choice of videos.

"Some of these are very military friendly but not all of them are," he says.

He points to one clip where the footage is murky, one of the soldiers looks scared and the viewer is left wondering what is going on.

"It certainly wasn't a recruiting commercial. I think it was a pretty frank look at what combat looks like in our generation.

"I don't think they are going to put something up that shows them in a bad light, but I do think they are trying to give you a little snapshot of 'one day in the life of...'."

Lt Col Garver would agree. "All I'm looking to provide is another view of things that are happening here in this very complicated, very complex place that is Iraq."

Military Bloggers Wary of New Policy

The Washington Post reports:
President George W. Bush -- appearing via remote broadcast on two large television screens -- on Saturday thanked a roomful of military bloggers in Arlington, Va., for their service to the country.

"America's military bloggers are also an important voice for the cause of freedom," Bush said in the taped message to the group, which was gathered in Northern Virginia for the 2007 MilBlog Conference. "You understand that defeating the terrorists requires us to defeat their ideology of hatred and of death with a more powerful vision, a vision of human liberty."

This compliment came just days after some bloggers lamented that a new U.S. Army regulation might hinder military blogging from combat zones. On April 19, the Army issued Regulation 530-1, an updated policy on operational security that requires soldiers to consult with a commanding officer before posting information in a public forum. Army OPSEC Program Manager Maj. Ray Ceralde told washingtonpost.com Wednesday that the policy would have no effect on blogging.

But Bloggers at the convention remained skeptical.

"It has the potential for great mischief," said blogger John Donovan of a blog called Argghhh!. Donovan said he worried that commanders might interpret the new policy to mean that they have to read every blog post before it goes online. This could swamp commanders to a point where they will no longer allow blogging, he said.

Bloggers only would be required to register their blogs once, according to Ceralde, not to vet every post with commanders. This, though, is a point of contention, according to Donovan and milblogger Matthew Currier Burden of Blackfive.net.

Burden said he talked to several soldiers blogging from Iraq who said they were unsure of how to deal with the updated policy. Describing the policy as badly written, Burden said he and other milbloggers on the home front would try and clear up any confusion.

Ward Carroll, editor of military.com, one of the sponsors of the conference, said the president's willingness to appear via videotape at the conference, along with Rear Admiral Mark I. Fox's appearance via Web cam from Iraq, shows a positive change in how the civilian government and the military are reacting to the milblogging community.

"There have been initiatives, direct outreach to milbloggers," Carroll said. "Again this is evidence of a community that is growing of import and of impact."

Roxie Merritt, director of new media operations at the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, stood up during one of the four panel discussions and offered every blogger her contact information so they could participate in the blogger roundtables her office hosts. These conference calls connect bloggers with high-ranking U.S. military officials.

Blogger Bill Roggio of "The Fourth Rail" said the milblogging community has gotten a lot bigger since their first conference, held in April 2006. "It shows that there is a medium here that has a real influence," Roggio said.

However, Roggio too feared the new Army policy might have done some damage.

"It has a chilling effect," Roggio said.