The former Yugoslav republic of Montenegro has had enough of its civil servants playing on Internet websites Facebook and YouTube at work. In an official memo to all staff, the government has said that employees at state-run institutions who attempt to log in to Facebook and YouTube, the social networking and video sharing sites, would be greeted by the message "access denied".

A government spokesman said that the idea of the ban was to improve traffic and lessen network loads of governmental agencies during work hours. The government has listed a number of sites as either "potentially dangerous" or sites that generate large capacities, and banned the lot.

Montenegro has a population of around 650,000, with a large number of these being net savy. According to Bit, a local information technology magazine, around 40 percent of Montenegrins were registered Internet and wireless users in 2007, up from single-digit figures just a few years ago.

According to the web portal Cafemontenegro.com there are more than 14,000 Facebook users in the small country and the popularity of YouTube has also grown.

More here.