The Indian Army has updated its guidelines regarding the use of social media for its personnel, which allows limited use of Instagram, as the personnel are now allowed to view the content on the platform. There continues to be a ban on any active engagement, such as posting, commenting or liking content. The updated information has been issued to every department and unit of the army.
The move is a shift from the longstanding ban that prevented soldiers from accessing social media platforms like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram due to security reasons. However, all the previous rules regarding engagement on social media, such as digital activities and online behaviour, remain fully in effect.
Social media for view only mode
Indian Army chief General Upendra Dwivedi recently spoke at the Chanakya Defence Dialogue and mentioned that the strict rules were in place to prevent soldiers from honey trapped by foreign agencies, which in some cases led to unintentional leakage of sensitive information.
Speaking about allowing the use of social media in a view-only capacity, General Dwivedi said that, “Reacting means you want to give an immediate, quick answer. Responding means thinking about it, analyzing it seriously, and then giving a reply. We don’t want our soldiers to get involved in this, so we have told them that we will only allow you to use Twitter [X] for viewing. Don’t reply to anything right now. Reply after you retire. You can view it; there’s no problem with that. I think there’s a difference between reacting and responding. And this is a very big message for our adversaries. We don’t react, we respond,”
According to reports, the army allowed its soldiers to monitor the social media so that the soldiers stayed up to date on the situations and general awareness. Soldiers are also encouraged to report fake or misleading posts to their officers or higher authorities, which might help tackle disinformation or harmful narratives.
