Facebook plugin or link block messing up page

[Andie]

Problem: increasing number of websites that seem to have some link to Facebook on which gets blocked by the LA Internet Provider, as Facebook is blocked here. This block obscures a good chunk of the page. It does disappear after about 30 seconds or so, but in the meantime a teacher is trying to use the page on a SMARTboard or I'm left waiting to print out a price from a supplier website.

 

Our Internet Provider has offered to unblock Facebook, but that isn't something they want done here (primary school). The alternative solution offered is to set all staff laptops to a fixed IP address so they can just unblock Facebook on those to get over the issue while using the laptop for presenting to a class.

 

So folks, is there any other way to tackle this?

 

(I expect I'm opening up a can of worms on the filtering Facebook front, but I'm really after any possible technical solutions...)

[TechMonkey]

I think it must be a new type of plugin as I have found this over the last week too & I don't have Facebook blocked on my machine. It had "switch" written in the top left.

Not had it today so either they've changed the plugin or the filtering has changed.

[Andie]

I think it must be a new type of plugin as I have found this over the last week too & I don't have Facebook blocked on my machine. It had "switch" written in the top left.

Not had it today so either they've changed the plugin or the filtering has changed.

 

I've just checked the How Stuff Works site that gave us the original problem, and you're right. It is now OK.

 

However, I'm still getting an issue with some supplier sites. See attached and annotated screenshot from Misco. The section near the bottom of the screen that is surrounded by the oval appears when I hover over the section in the middle of the page also marked (where the block appears). It seems to indicate a Facebook plugin.

 

So possibly there were two separate issues, one of which has been sorted.

Screenshot Facebook plugin issue 20140312.pdf

[TechMonkey]

Looking at that page is both myself (Facebook not blocked) or as a dummy student (Facebook blocked) that doesn't happen. I wonder if you have a funny rule somewhere making things go funny. Worth running a policy test on facebook.com/plugins ?

[Andie]

Looking at that page is both myself (Facebook not blocked) or as a dummy student (Facebook blocked) that doesn't happen. I wonder if you have a funny rule somewhere making things go funny. Worth running a policy test on facebook.com/plugins ?

 

Don't have any policies at our end. All filtering is controlled by our Internet Provider. So possibly I'm back where I started. But I'll go back to them and tell them what is happening elsewhere so that they can look again at the issue. Thanks.