Indian firms lead survey of social network blockers

People wasting time with Facebook and other social networks at work is a major problem for companies around the world, but different countries have different ways of dealing with it. This much is apparent from a recent Cisco study showing highly variable levels of social network blocking policies among different countries.

India led the nations surveyed, with a whopping 96 percent of IT decision makers saying their company disallowed social media sites at the workplace. Chinese companies, surprisingly, had the least restrictive IT policies, with only 21 percent of firms blocking social media sites, perhaps because the country itself already has myriad restrictions on online access.

Overall, 52 percent of firms in the study didn't allow social media sites to be used at work. But that didn't dully stop eager users -- 50 percent of employees in the study said they ignored their company's policy, with 27 percent actively changing settings to get around the prohibitions.

Does your workplace have a policy banning social networks? Do you follow that policy?

[Via SocialTimes]