We are just figuring out social media. One of the issues it raises is the possible confusion about roles. Say an employee of an organization also operates a blog as a private citizen. The content of the blog has a relationship to the mission of the organization.
That seems to be the ambiguity concerning the two identities of John E. West. He is both an employee of the Department of Defense [DOD] and the Editor of InsideHPC, which focuses on supercomputing. The DOD deals with supercomputers.
I published an article about the question of a possible conflict of interest. Here you can read it. Mr. West contacted me by email, stating that the article allegedly involves defamation. I don't agree. I gave him the opportunity to present his point of view. I sent him email questions.
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Here are those questions and answers:
JG: You say that there is a misunderstanding of your association with the publication versus your employment as a Department of Defense employee;
JW: The article alleges that InsideHPC is a direct activity of the Department of Defense, to whit: "That is the situation in the DOD publication of InsideHPC.com [Sic]." This is just unsupportable by the facts. As indicated in the footer of every web page on the site, InsideHPC is produced by the privately held company indigoBit, LLC. There is simply no evidence or credible explanation for that the DOD's interests would be in a) producing such a publication or b) obfuscating that fact from the public.
JG: Does it not confuse the public to have you in both roles, even though you might keep a firewall between them?
JW: This is a separate issue from the erroneous assertion that drives the article, namely that InsideHPC is an official activity of the DOD.
However to address your specific question, the facts of my various associations have been reviewed by the appropriate legal entities within the Department, and the Department has agreed to let me pursue this activity with appropriate firewalls in place. As you can see by the comments left on your original article at Supercomputing Online, my various roles within the community are well understood, and as is well indicated by the fact that we are having this conversation. I am both careful in my actions and very available to answer questions about the relationship. If a perception of a conflict of interest arises that impairs my ability to perform my duties I will resolve it by reusing myself from one of the conflicting roles, in consultation with counsel.
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Many more of these kinds of questions about a possible conflict of interest will arise in the future. Players can prevent them by not taking on roles which could be perceived as a possible conflict of interest.
I want to make clear here: InsideHPC is not an official publication of the DOD.
I will post this interview on the comment section of the article. I will send it to Mr. West. After that, I request him not to contact me again, in any media. To do so will constitute what I perceive as harassment.