Technology: The Government and Social Media

The federal government might be the last place you’d expect to find information and creative critical thinking around Social Media.  The government has to date been paralyzed by security concerns.  The result has been that they have avoided the use of social media and Web 2.0 technologies.

The federal CIO council has created guidelines around the use of Social Media for Federal Departments and Agencies. It may be stretching it to say that the document is ‘forward thinking’, but it shows that under the Obama administration there is a much greater tendency to embrace and adopt technology than previously.

The document breaks down and identifies four types of social media: Inward Sharing, Outward Sharing, Inbound Sharing, and Outbound Sharing:

Inward Sharing: “The sharing of internal organizational documents through internal collaboration sites such as SharePoint portals and internal wikis.”

Outward Sharing: “Also known as inter-institutional sharing, enables Federal Government information to be shared with external groups, such as state and local governments, law enforcement, large corporations, and individuals.”

Inbound Sharing: “Also known as crowdsourcing, is similar to conducting a large online collaborative poll.”

Outbound Sharing: “Federal engagement on public commercial social media Websites.”

To address security concerns, the document outlines a hierarchy of controls that need to be in place to allow safe and secure use of these technologies:

Policy Control:  Each federal agency should develop a social media communications strategy.

Acquisition Control: Social media needs to meet enhanced security requirements in order to be used in the goverment, especially in the area of authentication, user profiles, adoption of security best practices, and security code reviews.

Training Control: Users need to be bade aware of proper social media policy, guidelines and best practices. Network Controls: Networks where the software is hosted need to comply with the Federal Trusted Internet Connection program which describes best practices around inspection, monitoring, detection and blocking technologies.

Host Control:   The government is creating a hardened Common Operating Environment.  Software should be hosted and made available in such an environment.