I really don't get it! Army, Navy, Airforce... they can all use it! Why not Marines?? It doesn't make any sense. Maybe like people higher up. But not just Marines. Unless they are planning to blow up Iraq. O.o scary.

They can still email right?
So, what the problem?

what's

It's not just viruses and whatnot -- it's called operational security. These are the rules we all agreed to when we signed on the dotted line and we must abide by them. Security HAS to be a top priority.

That said, don't single out the Marines. It should either be an across the board thing for all the Armed and Civil forces, or nothing.

I think it should be banned by all branches of the military or none...don't single out the Marines. Security should be the top priority.

it's not harder to get ahold of him if he still has email
it's just more of a pain in the ass to relay tons of messages and pictures

My husband is currently delpoyed overseas and has been for the last eight months. Facebook etc., has been a huge part of our communication with eachother and family. I continually post photos of our children because he is missing our life on a daily basis. I think they are all very conscious of not revealing anything inappropriate in regards to security. I cannot imagine any wives, family, friends dealing with the very difficult time of deployments without it. My heart goes out to them. My husband is in the Army so hopefully they will still allow this. Don't forget the sacrifice these Americans are making for your freedom- they deserve respect!

I can understand why it's banned, Twitter used to be used differently. Before getting all the attention from the media and celebrities, it was used to say what you were doing, not to follow people and chat like you text. I'm guessing the army didn't want people to tweet "I'm on the field, training" or "We're on our way to hit a base at ... " by texts.
Facebook and Myspace is used from the camp, more control!

My good friend is a marine and he keep us all updated on his life on Myspace and I love it.

I work for the navy, we have been getting some warning "loose tweets, sink ships" emails for a while now.
That being said, I think this is a little ridiculous, because it came down from the DOD, not the Navy.

WildStrawberry, you make a good point about the guys revealing their location, but they are not even allowed to disclose information about their location/missions on the phone or through letters, much less online. As for in my situation, I use SNS to advertise recreation activities. We were warned not to disclose the location/times of our events, for fear that terrorists would exploit that information. But it is a irrational reason, simply for the fact that so much information about the military is already public knowledge (location of bases, military sponsored activities off-site, ect.).

I do think that the major issue is the spyware/malware, but after working in IT with Network Security, I do know that they can be very paranoid. All that being said, I don't think that they would have made a decision like this without some serious consideration. I don't see any of my marines getting off their SNS anytime soon though.

I hope you didn't take my comment as disrespectful to soldiers. And I understand that this may be more of a burden on families and friends, but ultimately, to me the safety of our armed forces is more important than them being able to tweet and facebook. Like Leila said, they probably made this decision for a reason and after consideration.

military.com (i believe) said that they can still use social networks when not working, aka on "civilian time" ..the main point of banning them is to avoid violations of OPSEC, which happen allll the time on social networks.. people posting countdowns until their deployed loved ones come home, unit locations, updates on their service-related jobs; all of which are prohibited under OPSEC regulations.. so really, this ban isn't "new" its just enforcing existing regulations that are not being followed... so long story, I support this.. it's for their safety.

i'm down for whatever keeps our troops safe.

It just disrupts relations that are already strained due to space and the situation. i just feel bad for the soldiers and their families.

I am in the Navy, and I am not allowed to use Facebook. I am attached to a ship, but I think that shore-based personnel are allowed to use networking sites. I've just returned from deployment, so I was unable to look at Facebook for 7 months. I can't say that it was too painful. Now that I'm back, I really don't use Facebook as much as before I left. However, I must say that I looked at sugar.com quite a bit during those 7 months.