Andrea Di MaioDue to the need to reduce bandwidth consumption to support reliefe effort in Japan, the Defense Information System Agency decided to block 13 commercial web sites, including Amazon, Ebay, YouTube and MySpace. However the list does not include Facebook, as “many commands allow the use of Facebook to allow personnel to communicate with families and the general public, particularly in times of crisis”.
This is a clear demonstration that Facebook is now considered too critical to be shut down, does not matter how much bandwidth it sucks. Government agencies around the world that still toy with the idea that access to social media can be banned should take notice.
Category: social networks in government Tags: Facebook, government 2.0
4 responses so far ↓
1 Robert March 16, 2011 at 3:44 pm
From the news articles I have read I think you are over reaching. It appears that the emphasis is to stop personal video downloads. That DISA used too broad of a brush is a different issue (all of Amazon vs. the video section). My guess is that Facebook does not generate the bandwidth issues they are concerned about.
[Note: I think you pointed to the wrong article in your post. I believe you meant to link to http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20110314_9111.php.
2 Andrea Di Maio March 16, 2011 at 4:05 pm
@robert thanks for pointing out that the link was wrong. However Facebook can still consume bandwidth as it embeds videos, and they have killed MySpace instead. It is clear that drawing the boundary between personal and professional roles on Facebook becomes quite hard.
3 Hersh Sandhoo Encourages Entrepreneurs to “Become Legendary” | software for your business March 18, 2011 at 2:41 am
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4 Scott March 18, 2011 at 11:02 pm
Does that refer to China?