CBC’s network briefly blocked employees from from visiting social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace this morning. Also, some personal blogs, like John Gushue’s and the popular anonymous Teamakers blog were not accessible.
John Mang, operations manager for B.C. radio said: “It looks like was was a technical glitch. It was certainly unintentional. One phone call and it is being fixed.”
Ray Carnovale, head of CBC’s I.T. confirmed that and said the blockage “may be something going on external to us.”
All regions should have access to all those sites again.
What I think was interesting was just how fast news spread in the Corporation. I was on-air at the time and was getting dozens of CBC folks emailing me within the space of an hour. It spread quickly within the Vancouver radio newsroom and, presumably, others.
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i have several subjects on “blog watch”… ie Thunder Bay, Northwestern Ontario, Forestry, etc…. and I can easily get a story a week from these. Now, most of them appear to be blocked because they’re personal blogs..very annoying and of course, almost no notice. by the way, I also have CBC on blogwatch, and those blogs good, and bad, are gone as well.
I wouldn’t expect this to happen in Canada, nor at the CBC. In the USA, where George Bush has taken away many people’s personal freedom in the name of “Homeland Security”, this is expected, but not accepted. I hope the CBC reconsiders, and allows personal freedom back into the workplace. Facebook is a wonderful source of information, and many people, including reporters, find stories breaking on this website; as well as many others. I look to my neighbors to the north to set a better example than what is currently happening in the USA. I hope the CBC reconsiders, and allows personal freedom back into the workplace.
Respectfully yours,
Dingo Brennan Stewart
I’m betting it’s just a config error - looks like it’s intermittent.
The irony is that everybody around me is now hammering away at every blog or social networking site they can find to see what’s blocked and what’s not, so it’s not exactly encouraging efficiency in the short term.
Seems to affect some computers and not others - probably the journalistic exemption at work. I imagine we’ll get some official statement well after everyone has flown into a tizzy.
Why have the “The Facebook cbc network” when the CBC blocks the site? I always find it interesting how companies respond to Facebook and other social sites. Maybe they should block the internet completely that is the only safe way to protect the CBC from the outside “online” world.
Tod,
CBC blocks free speech? I thought it will never come to this.
Thanks for reporting on this and keeping your readers posted. I am also blogging about this to keep others informed as this is more than an internal CBC story.
Actually, scratch that, it is deliberate.
But there’s a thread I was watching
I hope that Kev is right about a config error. At any rate as soon as things are clarified a bit (as to exactly what happened and what is blocked) I’ll start finding and talking about workarounds. Even in China there are ways.
Ah, that’s not good at all.
I had hoped for better from CBC.
How did personal blogs “accidentally” get to be blocked? And the facebook and myspace block was an “accident” too?
I hope CBC is not simply blame some low-level I.T. person on all the problems instead of facing up to what happen.
Sometime, the coverup (especially badly executed ones) can be worst than the original trouble (no matter how bad it may look).
There isn’t an internet site that wastes more time than Facebook. Its a social network for people to look at their friends pictures and read what their cousins daughter is doing on vacation. If there is a legitmate work reason to access Facebook, cetainly a technician can enable overrides for particular staff members (ie. reporters). I’m happy to see Facebook blocked. I only wish that all Federal Government Departments would do the same.
^
This guy must have no friends…
I’m glad it’s a technical glitch. After all if I can’t check my personal stuff during my break time, that’s means I’ll stopping checking work stuff at home. TIT for TAT and all that!
I took a break for some ‘fresh air’ as soon as I heard this news…
In the pods surrounding me, in the elevator, in the atrium downstairs, and finally the space where those of us collect our ‘fresh air’… EVERYONE was talking about facebook.
… and by the time I returned to my desk the story had changed from ‘blocked’ to ‘glitch’.
It truly blows my mind just how global this social network has become.
I’m sure it was a glitch.
However, there’s clearly a blacklist somewhere in the software for this kind of thing… the glitch was that the block was activated, the list itself isn’t a bug.
So the real question is: who made the list? Is it just part of websense, or did someone in the corp draw it up?
I wonder if it was local to Vancouver? Your morning would have been my lunch, and I had no problems accessing Facebook and personal blogs over lunch.
Wait till Google rolls out their just-announced facebook-killer. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
How did personal blogs “accidentally” get to be blocked? And the facebook and myspace block was an “accident” too?
Websense categorizes sites and blocks by category, and facebook et al and any personal blogs that Websense have processed would all fall under one category. So a (mis)configuration that blocked that category would take all those sites out in one fell swoop.
Websense categorizes sites and blocks by category, and facebook et al and any personal blogs that Websense have processed would all fall under one category. So a (mis)configuration that blocked that category would take all those sites out in one fell swoop.
So if that was the case, should we have seen a lot of personal sites been blocked? After all, teamakers blog under http://teamakers.blogspot.com/ which the “glitch should have bought down all sites under blogspot.com ?
Lets hope this kind of “technical glitch” doesn’t happen often. After all, CBC is a respected institution in my book and I hate to see bad stuff happen to it.
Just my 2 cents.
And I bet the black helicopters are flying over your house right now, Dingo….
It’s so easy to get around those Facebook blocks, even if they were put their intentionally.
All one has to do is go to http://www.GoToFacebook.co.za, type in the URL of Facebook and there you are!
looks like the vancouver island health authority has blocked my facebook browsing during lunch. I have no access to it or through http://www.GoToFacebook.co.za. trouble is it has replaced much email correspondence normally done with my email software and now i cannot receive important messages while on break. This should make good media fodder.