With the explosion of social media sites like USAWTFM, Terminal CWO, the Salty SPC, etc: Are they effective?

US Army WTF is doing a lot more than the IG ever did. Most of the high visibility issues the Army is currently dealing with were known about for years, but only dealt with as a result of social media exposure...

CSM Carl Cunningham - I think that the WTF page has brought to light a lot of issues that were being ignored and did get them addressed. Also they will often post Go Fund Mes or other things to help out veterans, active duty etc. They will put out calls for veterans who have died and may not have family so people are there at the funeral.

When my daughter needed a transplant and I was looking for living donors, they posted her story to their site. I had a lot of people messaging the page I made for her with interest in being a donor, how to get tested. Ultimately, none came through and she ended up with a deceased donor kidney. But it got her story out there to more people. They do things like that quite often and I think they have helped a lot of SMs and veterans.

I think sometimes you have once in awhile misinformation spreads through texts and then they post it. They're not perfect, they are human.

I don't know about the other pages. I also know that the SMA is very active on Twitter and he addresses a lot of issues or even any misinformation. I don't think a lot of SMs realize how big of a presence he has on Twitter and interacting with Soldiers.

I must caveat that I am not on ANY of those sites. RP is literally my only social media. That being said, my personal opinion is that if leadership is needing to rely on these sites for "ground truth" with their Soldiers, then there is a lot more wrong with the situation than how they do or do not respond to those sites.