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Blocking social sites at work

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I just wanted to get some opinions and validate an argument before I bring it to upper management.

We run a Sonicwall UTM device that blocks all the normal “bad” sites that will get the business into legal trouble.

What mgnt wanted and got was blocking MySpace, Facebook, Hulu and any other sites that people frequent. This is contrary to what I believe, in that the Internet is a tool and sometimes people abuse tools. In that case, they need to have better management of their people and not use site blocking. Are you going to take away the pens because people use them to fill in crossword puzzles? Or ban the newspaper because that’s how the crosswords get into the building?

As far as I can see at this point, all the current policy is doing is pissing people off.

Now I imagine all I am going to accomplish is to piss off the other managers since I am effectively saying they are not doing their jobs of managing. So as a self preservation issue, I should just keep blocking the sites and play the role of happy employee. But no one has ever accused me of being smart. 🙂

Jason.

Topic

You are legally entitled to block websites

In reply to Blocking social sites at work

Jason –

The 1st Amendment protects political speech in a public forum. One does NOT have a 1st Amendment right to unrestricted web access at the workplace.

It is a sad fact of life that employees abuse Internet access at the workplace. Managers have a responsibility to optimize productivity. Employees have no ownership rights in workplace computers, and must comply with management guidelines.

Hopefully you won’t be the scapegoat for disgruntled employees – after all, you’re complying with management directives. Ideally, management should be open to a constructive dialogue on these issues. Honest employees are justifiably irritated that a small number of abusers create inconvenience for everyone.

So my advice to you is this:

1) Talk to management, and suggest that employees be brought into the decision making process about which websites should be blocked.

2) If you find management to be arbitrary and unreasonable, despite your best efforts to maintain a a professional dialogue, look for another place to work.

Hope this helps.

It has been my observation that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction (Newton’s law, I forget which one). Whenever management prohibits something, clever folks devise a way to circumvent the restrictions. So my question to you is this:

Suppose an employee uses a proxy server –

http://anonymouse.org/

Will this indeed succeed in circumventing site blocking?

Rick

Richard M. Brown, MD/JD (‘Rick’)
Portland, OR

Why should

In reply to You are legally entitled to block websites

In regards to your point #1: Why should employee’s have a say in what websites are appropriate for work use? Social networking sites are just that; social. They usually are not business related. If there comes a time when an employee needs access and it is justified, then it can be opened up.

I do not see why employees should have a say. The company pays for the internet access, and the company pays the managers to manage. So if they choose to restrict non-work sites, so be it.

And no, I am not in management.

Why?

In reply to Blocking social sites at work

The real question is WHY do they need access to this at WORK? It is a social site; not work related.

I may be wrong here but, you don’t get paid to run the IT department on your beliefs. You are paid to run the department for the benefit of the company; not some user who is whining.

To badly mangle your analogy,

In reply to Blocking social sites at work

The Internet is a toolbox. Not everyone needs the same tools in their box, and the tools one person can use effectively (say, an arc welder) may cause an emergency in the hands of another. You’re not removing all their tools, just the ones the company has judged they don’t need. You wouldn’t give an arc welder to a seamstress.

I also support cmiller’s position: the company pays for the connection and the equipment to access it. It is entirely within management’s realm of responsibility to determine who is allowed to access the internet and what they can get to. Can you provide a business benefit to allowing access to social networking sites?

Let’s go with your theory that it’s due to poor management of people. One manager may do a good job of monitoring and restricting what his people access, but another may not care. In that case, the employees visiting social sites are taking up bandwidth at the expense of the “good” manager’s users.

I’m not sure why people would be pissed off. They’re being paid to work, not pad their ‘Friends’ lists.

I agree with everyone else

In reply to Blocking social sites at work

These are SOCIAL sites, not WORK related. We just recently started blocking MySpace and FaceBook and oh my the controversy it caused when we announced it was unbelievable. Then we told executive management that by blocking just these two sites we will see productivity for some of our employees double. Apparently some were parked on these sites all day long.
We do use these as recruitment tools and for those handful in HR who need access we have excluded them from this policy.
Sadly many managers don’t want to deal with the issue so they ask IT to be the bad guy. Then they can just say “See, it’s in the policy” thus avoiding managing.

You’re barking up the wrong tree.

In reply to Blocking social sites at work

I also agree with the others. He who has the gold makes the rules. Deciding which sites get blocked is management’s decision.

Just hope management doesn’t put TR on its black list. 😉

EDITED — typo

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