White Papers for Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)

Social Networking: Brave New World or Revolution from Hell?

MessageLabs

They say it’s good to talk. But in business, it depends what you’re saying – and who you’re saying it to. Right now this simple truth is a hot topic in the business community, thanks to the lightning fast rise of social networking.

It’s a real phenomenon. Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Orkut, Perfspot, Friendster, Neighborhood – the list of social networking websites goes on and on. Masses of users are signing up to their services at an astonishing rate; MySpace alone currently hasover 200 million accounts.But even as social networking makes it easier than ever to communicate online in real time, democratizing the Web and deluging cyberspace with information and opinions posted by millions of people eager for ”virtual” conversation, poses many
challenges for the business world.

Results of an exclusive MessageLabs survey conducted in September 2007, reveal that approximately 75% of companies said the number of visits their employees were making to social networking sites had increased over the previous six months.About 60% thought this had damaged productivity; while over
75% believed corporate reputation could be seriously threatened if staff posted negative comments about their organization online. No wonder over 70% of respondents said they were thinking of restricting employee access to social networking sites.

For many organizations, this free fl owing, unregulated environment seems a truly intimidating place, the Internet’s answer to a lawless Wild West (or should that be Wild Web?) town where anarchy rules and unwary visitors court disaster. Or at least risk seeing their identities stolen and their corporate networks infected with unwanted malware as cyber-criminals hijack social networking for their own malevolent purposes.

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