As part of U.S. President Obama’s Open Government Directive (OGD), new rules have been announced today that would allow select government agencies to employ social media channels for feedback from citizens, in certain situations, without making everyone fill out a form. Transparency is the operative word, the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) is a driver of these changes.

Certain social media channels, such as wikis, webinars, blogs, forums, chat sessions, social networks, etc., can be used to receive public feedback. General feedback is fine; however, if there are ten or more people attending a public meeting and are asked the same “identical questions” in the form of a survey, then it’s “information collection,” and presumably requires some form of paperwork.

The changes to social media use were announced today on the Whitehouse’s OGI blog. However, the Washington Post sums it up in an easier to digest manner. While it takes a bit of time to absorb the details, it’s nice to see that at least one government doesn’t think social media is damaging to their control.