Earlier this week USA Today featured an article about how "Technology makes porn easier to access at work" and while that seems like a no-brainer, I was struck by how many companies have gone so far as to install devices to block porn and risqué websites on their office supplied computers and portable devices. According to the article, 65 percent of US companies used software to block workers' access to inappropriate websites in 2005. Why have companies set it up? According to USA Today:
About 16% of men who have access to the Internet at work acknowledged having seen porn while on the job, according to a survey for Websense by Harris Interactive in 2006. Eight percent of women said they had. But of those who acknowledged viewing porn sites at work, only 6% of men and 5% of women acknowledged that they had done so intentionally.
The issue of blocking access is especially relevant when it comes to portable wireless devices like laptops and smartphones like the iPhone, which offer easy and seemingly private web access. While I fully understand many of the sites people cruise during the workday could fall into the "Not Safe For Work" (or NSFW) category, I can't imagine accessing porn on my work computer. Am I alone here? Do you intentionally view content you know is NSFW in the office?
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Claudie Pierlot
When I see "NSFW" it automatically forces me to click it. Then I tell people around the office to gather around. Or they stay where they are and just LOOK over my shoulder (hi giggle)
1Sometimes I unintentionally do, and then do that hurried close window/clip away maneuver. When I'm on site's like digg I always look for the NSFW notice but sometimes I forget. Luckily my computer is facing in my cube and not out so no one has ever noticed. And I don't think my company has any sort of filters or site blocking, I guess they trust us.
2It took me FOREVER to realize that "NSFW" meant "Not Safe for Work." Musta missed that memo.
But I totally do view that stuff here if I want to see it- my computer doesn't face anyone and it's a personal computer so nothing is blocked.
3yea i do .. but no one can see my comp
4NSFW isn't always porn, for one thing. And sometimes it can be difficult to avoid it; given the work that my husband and I both do, sometimes we accidentally view something NSFW in the course of actually doing our work. (We do research related to different aspects of the web and how people use it.)
5Yea, I do most of the time...but I work for a small company and no one really cares as long as I get my work done
6My work blocks a lot of stuff. They even block Wil Wheaton's blog because of the website it's on. Sad.
7I don't look at porn...but sites like dlisted and whatnot always have the nip and crotch shots of celebs and those are always funny! Plus, I'm very isolated in the far corner cause my scanner is loud!
8I am blocked from them
9Well since i dont work
10i just want to say my high school blocks
like photobucket,
myspace,
youtube,
and those websites that has anybodys personal stuff
I couldn't do it. Even if I wanted to. My art director sits where he can see my monitor. LOL! Unless you count sites like myspace, facebook, etc.
I'll stick to user friendly sites like teamsugar.
11My office is at home, but I wouldn't do that anyway.
12We have one client who blocks job sites, which is smart as why do you want to pay your employees to cruise craiglist for better pay on your time?
As far as companies not caring.. they usually don't unless they want to get rid of you. I worked with a guy that people couldn't stand. While they couldn't really find a way to fire him legally for just not being liked- they could investigate his IP address and found out that he was accessing something insane line 50GB's of porn data a month. That's outrageously large btw. That violated the companies terms of internet usage and bingo, an easy irrefutable fire. In doing this they also found out that two other guys were accessing porn as well. They were let off with a warning.
13I don't click NSFW stuff while at work, but it's not flitered either, tbh. We're on a university campus network, and realy, we can't block some content since it might be needed for research.
14I wouldn't click on that stuff at work anyways, but it does really annoy me that my work has blocked websites. Sometimes I wonder how it's even determined, because I will try and click on newspaper articles through Google News, and they block it. There seems to be not much rhyme or reason about it.
15I never purposely go to NSFW stuff. Sometimes there isn't a warning though, so I just close the window if I see boobs or too many F bombs.
16i'm not blocked from stuff like that, but i don't go to sites like that at work.
17NO WAY!!!!
My company just fired a guy because he was on the internet. And this guy was the "go-to" guy with a masters degree who was head of accounting.
SO what do you think they would do to me (who is a part-time assistant/student).
18i don't work - yay! but, i did when i did work - i had my own office and the screen faced a blank wall behind me so it was all good. i also looked at a ton of sites on post-secondary institutions etc most of the time i worked there. ha ha.
19"I don't make a habit of it, but sometimes you can't avoid it."
Although I am with 7bits... sometimes I just can't help myself- I have to click it!
20i can't imagine looking at porn during work
21i don't. i don't work at an office, rather, an indoor go-kart track at the reception desk, but we have computers and i'm notorious for going online. apparently, we're not supposed to have internet at all, and our IT guy has repeatedly taken it away and we've found ways to hack into it. we want our celeb blogs! now, apparently, rumor has it that he's looking at what each of us is viewing on the computers. although it's a rumor, i still don't look at explicit pictures. sometimes it's inevitable, in ads on these blogs, and half the time i don't even notice.
22I'm woth 7bits when I see NSFW I can't help but click it and then proceed to pass it around the office lol
23my works websense is sooo strick, i cant even look at my horoscope
24Heck no,I work in an elementary school!
25No way! I don't want to get fired... But there have been times where searching for things makes some bad things pop up!!! God, that is scary when it happens!
26We recently had a guy fired for watching Internet porn. Also, a woman in our department was fired for non work related Internet browsing. No way I'd chance it......
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