Facebook banned by City firms
Networking website Facebook is supposed to improve your social life. But it emerged that "Facebooking" can also seriously damage your career. — More than two thirds of employers are banning or restricting the use of Facebook and similar sites over fears …
Context & Ripple Effects
The City-firm restrictions follow Telstra's employee Facebook ban two days earlier, showing that access controls were becoming an employer response as the service moved into everyday use. Facebook had also chosen to remain independent amid growing popularity, making workplace access a meaningful distribution issue rather than merely an IT-policy dispute.
First-order effects
- City firms restrict or block employees' access to Facebook and similar social-networking sites from workplace systems.
- Facebook loses a workplace usage channel among affected firms, while employees must separate on-the-job connectivity from personal social-network use.
Second-order effects
- Telstra and City firms give other employers a concrete precedent for treating social-network access as an acceptable IT and productivity-policy decision.
- Facebook and comparable sites face a split between consumer adoption and the network environments employers permit during working hours.
Third-order effects
- If employer restrictions spread, consumer internet services will increasingly have to account for corporate gatekeepers even when their products are aimed at individuals.
- Workplace network policy is becoming part of the competitive environment for social platforms, alongside the services' ability to attract users.
The trend: As social networks enter daily routines, employers are asserting control over when and where workers can access consumer web services.