DOD Blocks MySpace, YouTube, But Effect May Be Overplayed

The U.S. military's decision to block access on Department of Defense-owned computers to popular sites like YouTube.com, MTV.com, and StupidVideos.com may have less of an effect on soldiers at war in Iraq and Afghanistan than the headlines initially suggest.

The policy does not affect the soldiers on larger bases, who can subscribe to Internet service provided by private contractors for $70 a month. Sites like YouTube will not be blocked on those computers, the military said. Soldiers on smaller bases generally have far more sporadic Internet access, but military officials add that they will continue to be able to access sites through computers at Internet cafes and calling centers.

When the new policy was announced, the initial concerns were that the military was censoring the information that soldiers surfing the Web could call up overseas--not to mention limiting their ability to upload potentially disturbing videos of their own. It's not a surprising concern, given that the announcement comes on the heels of a recent Department of Defense change in policy that now requires soldiers to have approval from their commanders for any blogs, photos, or E-mail correspondences that they send through their computers.

The military, however, was quick to assert that the decision was "in no way a comment on the content, purpose or uses of the websites themselves," according to an official with U.S. Strategic Command, which made the decision to block 12 popular websites on government computers. Rather, officials said, it was a matter of "bandwidth issues." The already taxed DOD networks, they added, aren't up to the bandwidth demands caused by the growing popularity of sites like YouTube.com.

There is some irony that just two months ago the military launched its own YouTube.com channel, currently the site's No. 12 "most subscribed" channel. Multi-National Force Iraq established it, according to a posted note on the site, "to give viewers around the world a boots-on-the-ground perspective of Operation Iraqi Freedom from those who are fighting it." Military officials who launched the channel note that "we will only edit video clips for time, security reasons, and/or overly disturbing or offensive images."

Most soldiers often don't have great ability to watch video clips on the military-networked computers because those connections tend to be slow.

"One time it took me three hours to download one clip--and that's normal," says one U.S. military officer. "I think it's a little bit of a pain, and for guys who rely on DOD access for their E-mails, they might not be too happy with it, but I haven't heard anybody complaining. I think they understand that it's a computer infrastructure issue, and they can still access these sites in other places--it's not blocked across the board. Maybe that's why it's not such a big deal here."

--Anna Mulrine