Firewall Management Company Claims 50% Employers Block Social Network Use

More news today about bit blocking, this time concerning stuff happening in the workplace involving online social networking. Of the ?personal? and ?for fun? kind, that is.

Information gleaned from Barracuda Networks, a company specializing in network filtration (you know, blocking spam and whatnot), carries with it an interesting statistic having to do with corporate acceptance of social network use during the workday ? at work. The magic number: 50%.

That?s right. 50 percent of employers are now said to block access to social networking sites. So, MySpace and Facebook? A good number of executives say they?re a no-go, and choose to maintain a firewall to prevent such juvenile Web 2.0-esque dillydallying from eating into worker productivity. (Yes, even if such extracurricular stuff is done at lunch or break time.)

But hey, if you?re going into the corporate world soon, don?t be too discouraged now. There are some particulars to float by you, and they might help you prep for that treacherous nine-to-five career you?re about to embark on.

For instance, you might be happy to know that, if corporations are to choose between a block of MySpace or Facebook, 44% will gladly give MySpace use the boot while a not-so-dispiriting 26% will tell Facebook users to keep their profile page management as something best done outside the workplace. (Barracuda claims roughly 19.3% of businesses make sure to block both.)

So, pretty bad news for MySpace users; not-so-bad news for Facebook fans.

Of course, there are ways to get around such restrictions. For one, there?s the road of self-employment. If you?re your own boss, who the heck?s going to tell you to quit tracking the activities of your friends? Nobody, unless mom or dad or brother or sis decides to drop by the office (might be a quick commute, too, depending on whether or not said office is based in one?s family basement or not) and start to harangue you for wasting time and point out your continued lack of profitability as the reason to sign out of that social network already!

Another is to bite the bullet and get yourself a nice slim 3G wireless network card for your personal computer. That way, you?re not using your boss?s network. You?re using [network service provider name]?s.

No matter what, it?s certainly going to be your lucky day to find an employer willing to give you the unencumbered go-ahead to do as you please, online or otherwise, with your workday, but perhaps the restrictions mentioned above aren?t such a bad thing. I mean, you?ll have a job, which pays. Unless you?re making Facebook apps or working on some sort of moneymaking OpenSocial gizmo, it?s doubtful that social networks in and of themselves will give you sustenance. Which you need.

Lesson of the Day: If MySpace-or-money is what it comes to, we?d advise you to chose option #2.

What do you think of these restrictions? Let us know in the comments below.