City of Toronto disconnects workers from Facebook

Following in the footsteps of Queen's Park and Parliament Hill, the City of Toronto has banned its employees from using the social networking site Facebook on work computers.

Starting Wednesday, the city's 23,000 employees could no longer log onto the popular website.

Politicians, however, are exempt from the ban because they use Facebook to communicate with their constituents, said city spokesman Brad Ross.

Ross said there's no sign that city employees have been wasting time on the site, "but to mitigate that possibility, we just simply denied access."

Other websites already deemed unacceptable and banned by the city include pornography sites, gambling sites and the video-sharing website YouTube.

On Facebook, members have profile pages where they can post photographs, write about their interests, join groups, create events and send private or public comments.

"Does it serve a purpose that a city staff, city employee have access to Facebook? Does it do anything for the city? The answer would have to be no."

A week ago, the province blocked access to Facebook on staff computers.The siteis also banned in most federal departments in Ottawa.