Military Hypes, Bans YouTube (Updated)

Iraqslogger: "One day after the Pentagon banned U.S. military personnel worldwide from accessing the wildly popular YouTube Web site via [Defense Department] computers and networks, the weekly electronic newsletter of the US-led Multi-National Forces-Iraq (MNF-I) today makes a banner appeal for US forces and others to watch MNF-I's new YouTube channel. Oops."

YouTube, MySpace, and the like were banned -- allegedly -- for eating up bandwidth. But one Army officer, echoing Sharon's suggestion, says the military's ubiquitous PowerPoint presentations would be a better target. That is, if the Pentagon is really looking to kill off network hogs.

In Kosovo, the PowerPoint briefings got to be so big the whole [classified network] system regularly slowed down until it would take 8 hours on occasion for an e-mail to get through. This had some detrimental effects on C2 [command and control].
Some commanders insist on Black and white on slides to reduce the bandwidth and color ink cartridges expended. There are times when a picture is worth a thousand words (though most pictures I see in these
PowerPoint briefings are not worth the paper they are printed on).
Still if our bandwidth is so limited that we cannot affort to let troops at MySpace can we really execute network centric warfare?

Over at Blackfive, Uncle Jimbo adds*,"*If you are gonna keep troops away from their families for 15 months at a shot you owe them the best contact possible with their families. If you are not willing to do that you have no right to ask those sacrifices."

UPDATE: Sen. John Warner, who chaired the Armed Services Committee for years, is not at all amused.

ALSO:
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* No More YouTube, MySpace for U.S. Troops

* Milblogs Boost War Effort
* Pentagon Whispers; Milbloggers Zip Their Lips
* Clarifying the Blog Rule Clarification

* Army to Bloggers: We Won't Bust You. Promise.

* Army's Blog Rebuttal

* Stop Those Leaks!

* Strategic Minds Debate Milblog Crackdown

* Milblog Bust: AP Gets Snowed

* Army: Milblogging is "Therapy," Media is "Threat"

* Urban Legend Led to Army Blog-Bust?

* New Army Rules Could Kill G.I. Blogs (Maybe E-mail, Too)

* Reporters = Foreign Spies?

* Army's Info-Cop Speaks

* Al-Qaeda Ramps up Propaganda Push

* [Al-Qaeda Propaganda at New High](https://www.wired.com/defense/2007/03/alqaeda_propaga.html)