US Soldiers Banned On YouTube

The US soldiers are now banned on YouTube after the Department of Defense decided to block the access on numerous online website including Google's video sharing service. Besides YouTube, the troops are banned on MySpace, MTV, Hi5, Pandora and some other Internet websites. Although the official refused to sustain other reasons than official matters, the army's access on these websites was restricted from the Department of Defense's network. However, the troops will be able to access these pages from their personal computer but, since most of them will leave the country for Iraq missions, the websites remain unavailable. OpEdNews reported that the army will be blocked starting with May 14.

"The Department of Defense has a growing concern regarding our unclassified DoD Internet, known as the NIPRNET. The Commander of DoD's Joint Task Force, Global Network Operations has noted a significant increase in the use of DoD network resources tied up by individuals visiting certain recreational Internet sites," The Department of Defense sustained according to the same source.

As you might know, the US army was quite an important YouTube user because the troops were uploading several clips on the online video sharing service to show the residents the real face of the war. However, this restriction is somehow limiting their options and makes the service unavailable. Because there is no official reason for the ban, the authorities sustained they took the decision for security matters probably because they were afraid of sensitive information posted on YouTube.

At this time, YouTube provides instant access to all kinds of clips, no matter if they are sports, movies or music videos. Recently, the parent company Google was affected by one of the most famous lawsuits filed against it after Viacom, the owner of MTV, accused the company for copyright infringement. Viacom also required no more than $1 in damages, almost the same amount of money invested by Google for the YouTube acquisition.