The Ontario government's ban on the use of social networking upstart Facebook in the workplace unleashed a hail of controversy in 2007. Pundits, technology evangelists and naysayers squared off in the media, debating the pros and cons of this emerging phenomenon.
Facebook has risen to sudden prominence in Canada, growing from one million visitors in 2006 to 14 million in 2007, according to ComScore Canada. Facebook ranks fourth in the top ten Web sites, after major search giants MSN, Google and Yahoo. And Canada contains about 10 per cent of Facebook's entire global population, according to The Facebook Blog.
The government is scrambling to deal with social networking and other Web 2.0 technologies that are spreading like wildfire across the nation, particularly among the young. Some say social media can revolutionize government communications, while others say they are enormous time-wasters. How should governments tackle this new beast?
Ontario's position
Ontario's recent ban of Facebook and YouTube for government staffers was a play for time, explains Karl Cunningham, head of e-government at Ontario's Ministry of Government Services (MGS).
"We're in the process of developing a comprehensive Web 2.0 strategy," he says. "We anticipate doing a review of policies and procedures, likely for the summer of 2008, as we go through an exploratory process." Although the current policy considers the use of social networks for personal reasons on government systems as inappropriate, it does recognize and allow access if there are legitimate business reasons, he adds.
On the public-facing side, the Ontario government has launched some small Web 2.0 pilots, and intends to scale these projects up if they're successful, he says. Current pilots include obviously.ca, a youth-oriented blog devoted to environmental issues, and the office of the premier is developing speech footage designed for YouTube.
Internally, there are about 180 collaboration spaces hosted on a common, open-source enterprise platform, he says. "The use of collaborative technologies is more widespread internally than externally," he says, noting there are many blogs, wikis and RSS feeds in use.
Many program areas use these tools for communications with project teams, committees, and working groups. "Web 2.0 technology is most useful for this purpose, as it allows policy formulation and project management to be done in a more horizontal fashion across vertical silos."
But social networks such as Facebook are seen as detracting from productivity at this point in time, he says. However, he acknowledges that Facebook is evolving rapidly, and it's possible its business networking features may be developed to make it an indispensible tool in the future.
"That's why we have a short life cycle around reviewing our policies and standards. As Facebook and other social media evolve, it's important we keep up."
He points out the Ontario government is already struggling to keep up with information management policies and practices around emerging issues for established and accepted tools such as internal blogs. Preserving significant information for historical records is a key issue.
"How will that content generated by blogs be appropriately managed and archived?" he says. "We need to figure out how to store and preserve this information, as it's part of the public record."
Dan Lublin, a Toronto-based employment lawyer, has spoken out publicly in favour of the Ontario government's Facebook ban. He participated in a televised debate on TV-Ontario's The Verdict with Gary Gannage, the president of the union of employees at Queen's Park in Toronto.
"Interestingly, (Gannage) said he didn't necessarily disagree with the ban, but was concerned about the perception that the ban was needed as staffers were wasting time. He took issue because it perpetuated stereotypes," says Lublin.
Although he supports the ban, Lublin says there are some workplaces where a case can be made to permit the use of Facebook. "If there's a connection between social networking and the job being performed, such as contacting potential clients and building exposure, then that's a legitimate argument."
But the crux of the matter is that Facebook is seldom used exclusively for business purposes, he says. "It's difficult to distinguish or prohibit personal use while also permitting business use. And I'm not sure they're mutually exclusive."
Much has been made about the loss of productivity implied by the use of Facebook, he says. "The average Canadian uses Facebook about 29.4 minutes per day on average, but I've heard anecdotally some who misuse it more." An argument can be made to allow its use on the grounds that most employers permit employees some reasonable use of the Internet for personal matters, but Lublin points out this is a privilege, and employers have the right to mandate how corporate resources are used.
While the productivity issue has been spotlighted, a far greater concern is the reputational risk social networks pose to government, he says. Facebook, for example, is set up to interlink employees in groups, and these in turn can automatically interlink with other groups and individuals depending on how they're set up. Sensitive information can easily leak out to unintended recipients. "Employees may not necessarily know that they're exposing their employers to risk with their postings."
This feature negates the "reasonable use" argument for Facebook, he says. "Facebook creates what's essentially a blog post that can be disseminated across the planet," he explains. While Web surfing can do localized damage via viruses, social networking can have far-ranging impacts.
"The difference is that the Facebook audience can see what you're saying and doing all day and postings remain there for all to see for all time. I suspect if everyone could see what you're doing on the Web all day too, there would be a similar problem."
Continued: What other jurisdictions are doing
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