I’ve got some colleagues who are seriously addicted to Facebook. Luckily, they don’t work for the Ontario provincial government, where the site was banned yesterday. Despite knee-jerk reactions from bureaucrats largely concerned with bandwidth bottlenecks, it seems that “respectable” networking sites like Facebook (or myragan) may prove to be the thin edge of the wedge for social media in the workplace.

Simply reading blogs, which is a frequent activity in government offices around the world, really doesn’t count as a participatory activity that builds value. Listening to podcasts, while informative, may not lead to further interaction with the podcasters or their audiences.

Social networking sites, on the other hand, offer office-dwellers an opportunity to extend their network of professional and personal contacts.

The “friend of a friend of a friend’s colleague” model may be their first chance to stumble into new friendships and networks since smokers were forced to take their fags to the lowest level of the parking garage.

“When workers tried to log on to their accounts yesterday, they were greeted with the same “access denied” message that pops up on their screens should someone attempt to download pornography on an Ontario government computer.

“The Internet website that you have requested has been deemed unacceptable for use for government business purposes,” the warning reads.

Facebook joins YouTube, online poker gambling websites and hardcore sex sites as verboten in any provincial government office across Ontario, said Government Services Minister Gerry Phillips.

But similar rival MySpace is still accessible to provincial government employees at work.

Facebook is prohibited from being used on computers in some – but not all – federal departments in Ottawa but the provincial ban affects every Ontario ministry.

“The staff determined it’s not as directly related to the workplace as we’d like it to be so we’re restricting access to it,” [Government Services Minister] Phillips told the Toronto Star.”