The army has revised its social media policy, allowing officers and ordinary soldiers to access Instagram, YouTube, X and Quora for “purposes of viewing and monitoring only” while barring any form of interaction on these platforms.
Personnel, earlier banned from using these apps at all, can now view and monitor content, but solely to “obtain knowledge/ info”. Posting, commenting, sharing, reacting and sending messages remain prohibited.
Facebook remains under a total ban.
“Only passive participation to obtain knowledge/ info has been permitted (on certain apps). Uploading of user-generated content/ messages, etc, are not allowed,” an army official said.
He added: “For apps like Skype, WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, exchanges of unclassified information of a general nature/ content have been permitted.”
The official added: “The content should be exchanged only with known persons and the responsibility for correctly identifying the recipient lies with the user.”
Under the new guidelines, the hitherto-banned LinkedIn can be used to upload one’s resumé.
“The revised guidelines have been issued to every army unit and department,” another army official said.
“The objective is to allow soldiers to view and monitor content on social media for their own awareness and information-gathering. Soldiers have also been directed to flag fake or misleading posts that they find to senior officers.”
The army periodically revises its social media guidelines.
In 2020, a complete ban was imposed relating to platforms such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram after multiple instances came to light of foreign agencies honey-trapping soldiers for sensitive information.
In 2018, intelligence agencies had asked central ministries, including the defence ministry, to remain alert to “honey traps” set up by foreign agencies to target personnel who deal with sensitive information.
The warning came days after the arrest of Nishant Agarwal, an engineer with the BrahMos Aerospace in Nagpur, on the charge of passing on sensitive information to Pakistani spy agency ISI after being honey-trapped online.
Sources said foreign intelligence agencies were suspected to be using English and Urdu-speaking women to trap Indian officers through social media.
In some instances, they sent friend requests on Facebook, exchanged numbers and engaged in sex chats with the targets via Chinese-made smart phones before beginning to blackmail them.
Delhi police had in 2018 arrested Group Captain Arun Marwah, 51, of the air force under the Official Secrets Act. A probe had allegedly revealed that the ISI had honey-trapped him online through two Facebook accounts and WhatsApp.
In December 2015, the Delhi police had arrested Ranjith, another air force officer, on the charge of sharing secret documents with ISI operatives. Ranjith had apparently come in touch with a woman on Facebook while recovering from illness at a military hospital.