Human Rights of Armed Forces Personnel Social media As with mobile phones, armed forces often facilitate access to social media of service personnel to enable them to stay in contact with family and friends. As social media are often also a source of news and current affairs, unnecessary restrictions on access could be seen as undermining the citizen-in-uniform role of armed forces personnel, as informed citizens are engaged and responsible citizens, and also have a right to be informed of current events. Social media can also be used beneficially by the armed forces themselves, such as in recruitment or to spread messages to personnel or the public.175 In addition, there are various types of online platforms where individuals can report instances of mistreatment of armed forces personnel. The potential risks are acknowledged by many employers who seek to regulate to some extent their employees’ use of social media, intending to mitigate the risk of reputational damage through ill-considered or unprofessional comments by employees. Moreover, the dangers of social media being used to bully or intimidate vulnerable individuals are wellknown. In addition, as with mobile phone use more generally, there can be specific risks to the security of military operations from the use of social media during active operational deployments, particularly where members of the armed forces inadvertently publish mission data – through images, videos, comments and even the timings of social media posts. 175 92 Maria Hellman, Eva-Karin Olsson and Charlotte Wagnsson, “EU Armed Forces’ Use of Social Media in Areas of Deployment”, in Media and Communication, Vol. 4, Issue 1, 2016, pp. 51-62; “Social Media in the Armed Forces”, Economic and Social Research Council, October 2016, https://esrc.ukri.org/files/ news-events-and-publications/evidence-briefings/social-media-in-the-armed-forces/.