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Gordon's Republic

IPA bans Facebook and other social media sites

Comments:16 Add your comment

What's with the IPA? It has banned the use of social networking sites like Facebook. It says it is worried about a "lack of confidentiality and privacy", but this seems like a poor excuse.How is the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising ever going to say ahead of the curve if it bans people from using social media sites as a means of communication?

Here's what the IPA says: "The IPA Council has ruled against the use of social networking sites as a means of communication in the course of any IPA business, either between the Secretariat and IPA members, or between members.

"The IPA believes that the lack of confidentiality and privacy involved in using social networking sites, rules them out as a means of carrying out IPA business."

There's more: specifically the IPA says the following is prohibited and vetoed (vetoed/prohibited? Who writes this stuff?):

• It prohibits IPA Committees and Groups from using social networking sites as a way of communicating to its members
• It vetoes any IPA material, logos, group discussions or personal data of other IPA members from being uploaded on to social networking sites

Don't sweat it though. Email and phones are still allowed.

The IPA says it has also issued "internal guidance notes on the use of social networking sites for its staff". You know what that will say - hit your veto/prohibit buzzer now.

Published Sep 14 2007, 03:17 PM by Gordon Macmillan

Filed under: Facebook, Myspace, social media

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Comments

by G Bembridge

September 14, 2007 9:38 AM

The dodo and dinosaurs also banned the use of social media of their time I guess?

by Mark Bridge

September 14, 2007 9:51 AM

What's the fuss about? Who on earth would want to send business communication using a service that lets anyone's friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend read it?

by David Muir

September 14, 2007 11:25 AM

Beyond parody

by 220807

September 14, 2007 12:27 PM

Confirmation that the introduction of an 'idiot tax' would be a great revenue provider...

by Sian Bateman

September 14, 2007 2:14 PM

Posted by Geoff Hang on, Gordon. We're talking about commercial communication here. Would you like your company's private business out there for all the world to see? I can't see Haymarket being too pleased.....

by Sian Bateman

September 14, 2007 2:37 PM

pur-leeze, the Summer of Facebook is over, there'll be another network in fashion in six months. Fine for teenagers to migrate onward like a herd of gnus, but not the framework for business communications. This whole crypto-anarchic view of online communications is what's doomed to extinction... just look at the flack Google's taking. Grow up and take some responsibility - you lot are too old for skateboards and silly haircuts.

by Victor Houghton

September 14, 2007 3:31 PM

You clearly haven't seen my haircut.

by Gordon Macmillan

September 14, 2007 3:34 PM

And my hair (which is all there) is very short.

by Sian Bateman

September 14, 2007 4:31 PM

um... precisely

by Rory Sutherland

September 14, 2007 7:53 PM

I don't think this is unreasonable - it's just written by lawyers, who have van Gogh's ear for language. In truth, I wouldn't conduct comercially sensitive stuff via Facebook either.

by Adrian Moss

September 15, 2007 9:13 AM

Reminds me of IT managers wanting to ban PCs because users were not technical enough and it risked corporate security. Eek people linking to our mainframe! Or those people who said mobile phones were unnecessary and risked private abuse as sales people could always find a phone box to call the offices to collect messages. They must have been the same people who said Google was just for Geeks and wouldn't have a demand outside of acedemic work. Facebook is simply a software tool serving a change in social communication behaviour started by the young and now being embraced across the complete age range. Watch Facebook 'lookalikes' boom for 50+'s (the fastest growing segment of the online community as well as richest and least time pressured and hence 'stickiest'). Kathy - Facebook may be superseeded but I would argue that it will not as it is an open platform so will morph into whatever the community wants. Thise who morph survive. Those that don't...don't...Remember what Ken Olsen of DEC (the world leader in mini computers at the time and idolised by Bill Gates when Bill was a teenager) said of PCs in 1980 'There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home'. Waste of time and only for geeks. This was the year Apple II was launched and Gates was talking about a PC in every office and home. Where is DEC today? Where is Apple and Microsoft? The future of communication (for those companies without a marketing/ad budget the size of the UK's GDP to get coverage in the increasingly fragmented media world) is in communities of 'people like me' that is at the core of products like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo etc. A social community nearing 300m or 25% of those online in the world. For anyone interested in the concept and application social media marketing it means that you now have a very powerful way to participate in the conversation and build relationships. Remember every community will have super-users who multitask over two or more software platforms so act as cross network feeds. People (especially younger people) are watching TV less and reading papers less as they prefer to take information online. E-mail marketing is being killed by spam so community based communication will become much more important over the next 2 - 5 years. But you have to be part of the online community to be part of the communication. If you ban social media use how can you ever see the possible business communication applications and weaknesses? If you don't want everyone to see what you are saying use the 'person-to-person' privacy button but a community thread - like this comment section - is what it is all about. Two further considerations. The workforce of tomorrow maybe influenced in selecting employers of choice by such attitutudes. Graduates are the digital generation. They have never known a world without PCs, mobile phones and satellite TV. What will they think of companies who's management ban what they use everyday or fail to see its application in business? Finally, if as management in this ever increasingly competitive world we expect our workforce to be engaged, motivated and flexible and not work 9 - 5 how does the simple matter of trust figure in banning something? Why not simply ask employees to be reasonable or should we monitor all phone calls for private versus business use and check all conversations between staff is only work related?

by CHRIS ARNOLD

September 17, 2007 1:22 AM

This is a true story. Recently tried to get hold of a client to get urgent approval on an ad. Tried his direct line. His mobile. His email. Nothing. In desperation sent a message via Facebook. He called back 5 minutes later. Works for me.

by Sian Bateman

September 17, 2007 10:53 AM

so Chris you used Facebook to reach a client who CALLED YOU BACK for the process of approval. Assuming FB hasn't launched a CrazyFacePhone app can we gather that the vital business communication took place away from the social network? Yes? You basically paged him.

by CHRIS ARNOLD

September 17, 2007 8:50 PM

Usually best to press the POST button just once.

by Gordon Macmillan

September 18, 2007 8:30 AM

Calmn down Kathy, CAPITAL LETTERS are so shouty.

by Mihnea Miculescu

September 21, 2007 7:08 PM

I'm sure Facebook is now doomed.

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