Social media &
Porsche kills Facebook
Filed under: Facebook, Social Media, Your rights
German sports car manufacturer Porsche banned employees from using sites such as Facebook, Google Mail and Ebay.
The head of security, Rainer Benne, explained that social networking sites are a way to leak internal information to competition. The idea behind the decision is that intelligence services use social networking sites to get close to people who have access to sensitive information. Then they try to win their trust and extract that information.
Well, this is bull**t! Befriending a staff member (high enough to have access to sensitive information) and making them spill their guts… on Facebook. What is this guy smoking? Next up, Porsche bans stone tablets and homing pigeons. Mobile internet is growing and 25% of Europeans have used a browser on their mobile phone.
If you have a security problem then the cause is in the people not the tools. I’m sure that Porsche’s employee contracts include quite a bit about what the can and cannot say. This actually covers Facebook, too. If you think people use too much Facebook during the working hours, block the service and say so. So, dear Rainer, get a grip on reality and deal with the underlaying issues.
The source (Wirtschaftswoche in German) says that a quarter of Porsche’s 13,000 global employees use Facebook and other social networking sites. Let’s calculate: 13,000×25%(who use social networking sites)x25%(mobile browser usage)=812. Quite a big hole there.
What are they missing? Automotive industry is fan based. There are hundreds of Porsche fan pages on Facebook with thousands of fans. Opening up and connecting with those people would be a great way to build the brand.
What do you think about blocking social networking site for security reasons or otherwise?
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Image credit: Damian Morys
Posted on: October 13, 2010
