SEC Guidance On Social Media And Websites For Company Announcements And Communications- Part III
On April 2, 2013, in response to a Facebook post made by Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, the Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued a report confirming that companies can use social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to make company announcements in compliance with Regulation Fair Disclosure (Regulation FD) as long as investors are alerted as to which social media outlet is being used by the company. In the report the SEC stated that previously published guidance on the use of Company websites was applicable to the use of social media. Accordingly, in a series of blogs I am reviewing the SEC guidance on the use of company websites. This blog is Part III in the series.
Background
Regulation FD requires that companies take steps to ensure that material information is disclosed to the general public in a fair and fully accessible manner such that the public as a whole has simultaneous access to the information. Regulation ended the era