CONTROLLING THE ACCESS of the Internet for information or anything else is known as Internet censorship. Often, it occurs when the material on the Internet is not helpful to the people using it or it is a hindrance to one’s output. It can be censored at the workplace for a couple of reasons. The biggest contributor to this however is so as to increase the productivity of the firm.
In the case that individuals cannot conduct the censorship on their own, all computers are denied access to certain facets of the Internet in a united move that maintains equality all over the workplace. When individuals can’t go five minutes without tweeting, checking their Facebook, or even online gambling, they derail their productivity. This is usually when Internet censorship is a good thing.
Internet censorship at the workplace is based on more than one reason. One of the reasons is that the sites they might be viewing might be detrimental to the line of work they have. In a case filed some years back, an employee of a certain fashion house made a design that looked very much like one from a rival fashion company. When asked where she got it, she confidently said that the design was on the Internet and everyone could access it. After she was fired, the company’s IP address was blocked from viewing any other fashion house’s content. This kind of internet censorship is helpful as it makes the workers at that institution think outside the box and come up with their own ideas that help their companies improve.
Probably the most common reason why Internet censorship in the workplace is a good thing is that the stuff people like to access on their own time, most likely, has nothing to do with what their paid job is. As long as they need to use the Internet for their duties at work, the temptation will be much too great for the average person to take a little break and check the scores from last weekend’s games, read the latest celebrity gossip, or play online games. The bottom line is that your employees aren’t being paid to browse the web; they’re being paid to do their jobs.
With the increased rate of hacking on the Internet, Internet censorship helps prevent that as hacking in many places can result in stealing company secrets. There cannot be cases of such in these companies that have censored Internet; therefore, their company secrets remain safely guarded.
All in all, Internet censorship goes a long way in increasing productivity of the company’s workers as they are aided by nothing to think beyond their abilities and have more output. They are given the chance to work their own minds and are offered healthier ways of having their free time instead of just sitting and observing.
A final note is that although there are several good reasons for censoring the Internet at your workplace, unless there is a problem, I wouldn’t recommend enforcing censorship. It could backfire, causing your employees to feel like you don’t trust them.