16% of men have visited offensive sites at work
August 22, 2008 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Employee computer use, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Security and law
We like to think offensive Web browsing occurs rarely in the workplace. But is it that rare?
About 16% of male employees admit to having seen pornography at work, according to Harris Interactive poll. Most say it was accidental — but 6% have gone to porn sites on purpose during work.
For women, only 5% had viewed the offensive material.
Those are scary numbers for HR, since many companies have been sued for harassment because of pornography in the workplace.
August 26th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
The scary thing is, some people are truly “addicted” to pornography. I’ve had to fire a few for visiting porn sites while at work. They have all, without exception, become defensive and angry and denied it, even though we had hard evidence that they had indeed been regularly visiting the sites over a period of time. I had one woman tell me it was accidental…that she clicked a link in an e-mail and was shuttled to porn site after porn site and that she couldn’t get out of the “loop” (I’ve been told this CAN happen). We gave her the benefit of the doubt the first time, but after the 2nd and 3rd such occurrence in a short period of time, it became obvious she had a problem. You would think people could refrain from surfing such sites while at work, knowing the cost when they are caught. Unfortunately, human beings are…well…human…and don’t always do the smart or right thing. I guess that’s why HR professionals have jobs.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Another strong argument for a firewall appliance with which you can block websites CATEGORICALLY! Sure, I may spend some time opening it for legitimate sites, but it’s worth it considering many of the porn sites will infect the computers.