It’s been a bad week for social media networks.

On Monday, The Media Guardian pointed out (Note: after opening the link, scroll down to the middle of the page) that angry consumers who take their frustrations online to form brand-bashing groups on the likes of Facebook and Bebo are treading a dangerous legal line. Some of these groups’ rants could be seen as defamatory, a real no-no in Europe and North America. The Guardian quotes Nick Armstrong saying:

“There is a widespread but inaccurate belief that posters of
defamatory material are liable rather than websites themselves, but
this should not be taken as a green light for social networking sites
to allow users to say whatever they please.”

Also on Monday, an interesting survey emerged about the cost to the British business sector of our daily workplace Facebook habit. According to (yours truly at) The Times Online’s Mousetrap tech blog, the daily ritual is costing UK businesses a whopping £6.5 billion per annum in lost productivity and bandwidth constraints. Network specialists are also concerned about the security risk such sites pose with the freeflow of information between the workplace and the public Net. Still, nobody is suggesting a complete clamp-down on social networks in the work place. More corporate policies about limiting usage or partial bans could be in the offing however.

- Bernhard