Firms crackdown on Facebook use

The use of social networking platform Facebook in the enterprise has dropped gradually in recent months, according to researchers.

Security firm Zscaler said in its quarterly threat report that customers have begun to report lower levels of traffic to the site as users begin to migrate towards sites such as Twitter and administrators begin to implement social networking use policies.

According to the company, enterprises saw traffic on the social networking site fall from 52.40 per cent of all activity in the first quarter of 2011 to just 41.07 per cent of all activity in the same period this year.

Over the same time, use in Twitter has increased slightly, rising from 6.39 per cent of traffic to 7.44 per cent.

Researchers believe that the trend is in part related to stricter policies being put in place by administrators over access to Facebook.

"A significant reason for some of the declines in enterprise social networking transactions is corporate policy, meaning that enterprises appear to have been increasingly limiting access to Facebook but have been less concerned about Twitter," the company said in its report.

"Zscaler has noticed a general upward trend in Twitter traffic over time, suggesting that it is becoming a more widely adopted resource for employees as a broader range of people have begun leveraging the service."

The company noted that social networking platforms in general are increasingly being targeted for policy enforcement.

The report found that policy-related blocks on social networking sites rose over the quarter, as did enforcement of streaming media services, instant messaging and webmail.

"One of the trends that we noticed in our quarterly statistics is the fact that many more companies are enforcing policies on social networking," researchers said.

"In fact, there are many indications that companies are beginning to place much more controls on what is accessed online by their employees."

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