CorpComms Magazine

Where Portsmouth leads, Surabaya will follow. Indonesia's second largest city has blocked access to social networking sites Yahoo Messenger and Facebook, blaming them for a drop in productivity among civil servants.

Not only that, but the flurry of civil servants updating their status and poking friends has crowded the bandwidth, causing the Internet connection for Surabaya's government offices to slow to the speed of a tuk tuk.

Such was the social media mania that a closed circuit television connection with the police station and an electronic system in the local government's offices had shut down, according to Chalid Buhari, chief of Surabaya's Information and Communication Agency.

'At first, I didn't believe the reports from the task forces,' he admitted. 'But, after the ban was applied, the effect was immediately noticed.'

Prior to the ban's imposition, around 14,000 civil servants were simultaneously using the Internet. Since then the numbers have dropped to around 4,000. 'Apparently, it's quite effective,' said master of understatement Buhari. 

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