New Delhi: The Indian Army has revised its social media policy for personnel allowing “passive participation” on select platforms, under which platforms such as Instagram and X can be solely used for viewing, but active engagement including posting will remain prohibited.Army personnel will now be allowed to access Instagram and X, but won’t be able to post, comment, share, react or send messages, The Hindu has reported citing an Army headquarters order.While Instagram has been included in the permitted social media applications, it can be used for purposes of “viewing and monitoring”.“No comments or views will be communicated on Instagram,” the order says emphasising the need to protect sensitive information.Apart from Instagram, YouTube, X and Quora have also been permitted for passive use, and active engagement remains prohibited. LinkedIn may be used only for professional purposes such as uploading résumés or seeking information related to prospective employers or employees, the report said.The new guidelines also provide for limited use of other platforms including Skype, Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal, the report said. Such use will be only for the exchange of unclassified information of a general nature, among known individuals.In addition, the guidelines asks personnel to avoid generic websites, portals offering cracked or pirated software, free movie platforms, torrent and VPN services, web proxies, anonymised websites, chat rooms and file-sharing platforms. Cloud-based data storage services have been permitted with the caution that they be used only with extreme care.The change in policy comes days after Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi spoke about the necessity of a smartphone while speaking at an event in New Delhi.“A soldier can keep in touch with his family or read e-books online, so a smartphone is a necessity today,” he was quoted as saying by NDTV.He added that today’s generation is “socially conscious, digitally fluent and globally connected”.In 2020, the Indian Army directed its personnel to remove from their mobile phones, 89 apps, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, by July 15. In August, the Delhi high court had upheld the direction. The 2020 policy was a departure from a report commissioned by the Ministry of Defence in 2015, which recommended against such a ban.