One of the risks facing any enterprise is how to deal with people who use the corporate network to post rude, sexist or even racist material on public facing web sites.
That issue is coming home to roost for Volvo, following the news that Wikipedia has banned editing from machines inside the Volvo IT Department for racist remarks left on the pages of two well-known Pakistani Cricket players.
According to the Channel Register, someone in the Volvo IT Department wrote a number of racist remarks in articles about two Pakistani cricket players: Wasim Akram and Inzamam-ul-Haq. The IP Address, 192.138.116.230, maps back to the Volvo IT Department.
The rants were not directed at the players but other contributors to the site. Less than 20 minutes after the rants were left on the site, Wikipedia banned the Volvo IP address until early December.
Volvo made a statement that they are investigating the incident.
According to Channel Register, Volvo stated:
“We have a policy describing acceptable and prohibited use of Internet services and the measures to be taken if these services are misused.”
How to deal with the way people conduct themselves using the web and real-time applications will become an increasingly challenging issue for the enterprise. How this pans out will come down to the policies companies establish.
The truth is, we are in the early days of microblogging and even writing to the web. Corporate policies are few and far between. But you know this issue is going to be on the minds of managers everywhere as as incidents like the one at Volvo repeat themselves in any number of ways.
