The government of Montenegro has banned access to social networking and video sharing Web sites such as Facebook and YouTube in all state-run institutions, according to a published statement . Those who attempt to log on during office hours will be immediately prompted with an "access denied" message.PODGORICA (Reuters)—Montenegro has banned access to popular social
networking and video sharing Web sites such as Facebook and YouTube in all
state-run institutions, a statement said.
From Thursday, employees in government offices and the parliament trying to
log on to their Facebook accounts during working hours will be greeted with an
"access denied" message.
The office in charge of maintaining the government's network explained that
they sought to avoid a meltdown of its system from excess traffic.
"Therefore, during working hours, access to certain potentially malicious and
huge traffic generating websites is disabled," the office said in the
statement.
Montenegro, an Adriatic country of 650,000 that has posted significant growth
in Internet use in recent years, has 14,100 Facebook users. The popularity of
YouTube, which is owned by Google, has also grown quickly.
According to the latest providers' data, the current Internet penetration
rate is close to 40 percent, compared to just 8 percent three years
ago.
(Reporting by Dusko Mihailovic. Editing by Adam Tanner)
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