I suppose this is better than insisting that they NOT use them, but it seems misguided nonetheless. And what happens when some people start making public mistakes because they don't really get how social media works? Will the BBC be forgiving?

BBC news journalists have been told to use social media as a primary source of information by Peter Horrocks, the new director of BBC Global News who took over last week. He said it was important for editorial staff to make better use of social media and become more collaborative in producing stories.

This (start watching at 26:30) is getting a lot of howls of outrage and laughter among the Slashdot set, for good reason given the initial answer from the nameless middle manager.

But if you listen to Hillary's follow-up (it continues through 30:30), which people are not commenting on, she gives a better answer than most managers would in her position (not being a tech). Basically she's encouraging people to tell them when there's a problem. There are worse messages to send your employees. Too bad her subordinate doesn't get that.