United States Military On Twitter??!

[lindapalmara]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-30785232

I can't imagine why the U.S Army were on Twitter!

[janbee]

I was also surprised by this. I mean... why?

[Booldawg]

I've started following them.

Now there a black Ford LTD parked outside my house. Is this normal?

[Gromit]

Corporations and big organisations go on twitter because they can quickly and efficiently disseminate information they want to pass on (advertise) to a large number of people. They can do it instantaniously with a minimal staff.

[Old_Geezer]

I agree with Gromit. It will be a useful tool as many of you are enamoured with it. Risk free save for vandalism.

[Gromit]

They can also target certain groups they want to receive the information. Which means they can talk to their own staff, or send a different message to the public.
The attack on their account is embarrassing, but not really a security breach. Twitter look after the account on their servers and it is Twitter who have been breached not the US central Command.

[lindapalmara]

Gromit and OG - ok but why are all these people's personal details on it. Military?? Security risk??? Doooh

[jim360]

All such personal details were, apparently, already available through other sources. This "hack" looks like the work of a bunch of people pretending to be big without really caring about the ideas they're supposedly representing. A revealing error was signing off certain messages with "ISIS" rather than "Islamic State", which is what the organisation prefers to call itself. ISIS/ ISIL is the name given to it from those who see it as not a caliphate but a terrorist group/ totally illegitimate regime.

[ichkeria]

Twitter is useful as far as I can see for one thing only: which is precisely the reason the US Army and other organisations are on it.
Of course all we ever hear is about the nonsense which makes up 90% of it