The Marine Corps is expected to issue new social media guidelines Wednesday after recent revelations that nude pictures of female Marines had been posted online without their permission, according to a US defense official.
The official said that the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Robert Neller, will sign the new guidelines in order to clarify the military code of justice punishments that can be applied to social media sexual harassment to harmonize it with other forms of sexual harassment.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday, Neller condemned those who posted the photos to private Facebook groups, like Marines United and other image-sharing message boards, without the consent of the subjects.
During the hearing, Neller also reiterated his commitment to identifying issues in military culture to determine why this happened and whether new service members understood that such behavior is unacceptable.
Defense officials said the episode has raised questions about whether the Uniform Code of Military Justice is sufficient to deal with cyber issues, a point that was echoed on several occasions during Tuesday’s hearing.
