Social networks can be used to waste time, and members have also been known to encounter a virus or two. Now, decision makers at Apple and the Maryland General Assembly seem to feel these problems outweigh the positives, as new bans on the two most popular social networks have been reported.
On the corporate front, Facebook essentially caught up with MySpace; display Macs at Apple stores have been unable to connect to the latter site since May of 2007. According to Jason Wilk, Apple explained at the time, “Nearly 2 million people visit Apple Stores every week. We want to provide everyone a chance to test-drive a Mac, so we are no longer offering access to MySpace in our stores.”
Facebook reps could consider this ban a sort of backwards compliment, then.
The political situation looks less good. Maryland’s citizens must consider whether their lawmakers have been goofing off while the country’s economy was collapsing. And, even if the politicians were using the social networks to distribute information and listen to constituents, they were dumb enough to also download malware.
As reported by Judd Legum, a memo from Michael Gaudiello, Systems Director of the Office of Legislative Information, reads, “With the beginning of the 2009 Legislative Session, we have observed a significant increase in viruses and malware affecting the Maryland General Assembly computers. After several weeks of analysis, we have determined that many of the infecting programs are originating from pages hosted on www.facebook.com and www.myspace.com. In an attempt to reduce the number of viruses and malware entering the Maryland General Assembly facilities, we have blocked access to both of these sites.”
