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Does it bother anyone else that the SEC is considering disclosures on closed ecosystems like Twitter to be ok when the stock impact is in the billions? Is this

by slykat 13y ago

Does it bother anyone else that the SEC is considering disclosures on closed ecosystems like Twitter to be ok when the stock impact is in the billions? Is this allowed because Tweets are accessible without login or would this be ok on a platform like say, Quora, which requires login to access most of its content?

fleitz 13y ago
Does it bother you that the SEC also allows publication in news papers which generally are not free? Does it bother you that level 3 quotes cost upwards of $1000 / month?
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  It's a good point, but the concern is not free as in beer, the concern is free as in access. The SEC doesn't allow publication in newspapers that refuse to sell copies to clients they don't like, but a Twitter open only to account holders might mean some people were denied access for non-financial reasons, especially if they were unable to make an account.
  - fleitz 13y ago
    Running a closed access account on Twitter would be a gateway to jail for a guy like Ichan. That's simply pure speculation. Icahn is not trying to get retailers to buy his stock... that's what morons like Jim Cramer are for.
    - curiouscats 13y ago
      Well gateway to breaking the rules. But, essentially white collar criminals don't go to jail no matter how much they do illegally. Of course, there are exceptions, throwing Martha Stewart in jail, for example - but it is very very rare compared to the amount of crime done. I would guess the days-in-jail/$-value-of-illegal-activity for white collar crime is under 1/10,000th of that for crimes generally done by those that don't have country club memberships.
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    The SEC was pretty clear that social media disclosures cannot be done in a way that restricts access. A non-public Twitter account would not be in compliance with the rules.
    - foobarbazqux 13y ago
      Oh, I was addressing the question about how Quora is now, and if Twitter were like that.
      - nknighthb 13y ago
        If Twitter had Quora's restrictions, it may or may not qualify as exclusionary, but it probably wouldn't be "reasonably designed to provide broad distribution" as rule FD requires, since its distribution would be far more limited. The whole point is to increase distribution. The SEC's guidance was incredibly boring and utterly unsurprising. It said nothing more than that disclosures on social media sites can be (but not necessarily are) in compliance with Rule FD, the relevant portion of which I've pasted below. It's not a grant of immunity to anyone who might seek to disclose material non-public information to a limited class of people. On the contrary, it reminded issuers of their responsibility to ensure wide distribution. """(e) Public disclosure. (1) Except as provided in paragraph (e)(2) of this section, an issuer shall make the ‘‘public disclosure’’ of information required by §243.100(a) by furnishing to or filing with the Commission a Form 8–K (17 CFR 249.308) disclosing that information. (2) An issuer shall be exempt from the requirement to furnish or file a Form 8–K if it instead disseminates the information through another method (or combination of methods) of disclosure that is reasonably designed to provide broad, non-exclusionary distribution of the information to the public."""
    - slykat 13y ago
      Thanks, that's what I was asking about. Makes sense that the SEC allows this if the content is accessible to anyone without login and the content is crawl-able by search engines (i.e. easily discovered).
opminion 13y ago
It looks like an old world rule applied to the new world. In the old world it was expensive to publish, so it was accepted that publication takes place in non-free (as in free beer) media. In the new world publication is almost free, and perhaps one would just need to register a URI to point at all relevant information.

by slykat 13y ago

fleitz 13y ago

Does it bother you that the SEC also allows publication in news papers which generally are not free? Does it bother you that level 3 quotes cost upwards of $1000 / month?

foobarbazqux 13y ago
It's a good point, but the concern is not free as in beer, the concern is free as in access. The SEC doesn't allow publication in newspapers that refuse to sell copies to clients they don't like, but a Twitter open only to account holders might mean some people were denied access for non-financial reasons, especially if they were unable to make an account.
- fleitz 13y ago
  Running a closed access account on Twitter would be a gateway to jail for a guy like Ichan. That's simply pure speculation. Icahn is not trying to get retailers to buy his stock... that's what morons like Jim Cramer are for.
  - curiouscats 13y ago
    Well gateway to breaking the rules. But, essentially white collar criminals don't go to jail no matter how much they do illegally. Of course, there are exceptions, throwing Martha Stewart in jail, for example - but it is very very rare compared to the amount of crime done. I would guess the days-in-jail/$-value-of-illegal-activity for white collar crime is under 1/10,000th of that for crimes generally done by those that don't have country club memberships.
- nknighthb 13y ago
  The SEC was pretty clear that social media disclosures cannot be done in a way that restricts access. A non-public Twitter account would not be in compliance with the rules.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    Oh, I was addressing the question about how Quora is now, and if Twitter were like that.
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      If Twitter had Quora's restrictions, it may or may not qualify as exclusionary, but it probably wouldn't be "reasonably designed to provide broad distribution" as rule FD requires, since its distribution would be far more limited. The whole point is to increase distribution. The SEC's guidance was incredibly boring and utterly unsurprising. It said nothing more than that disclosures on social media sites can be (but not necessarily are) in compliance with Rule FD, the relevant portion of which I've pasted below. It's not a grant of immunity to anyone who might seek to disclose material non-public information to a limited class of people. On the contrary, it reminded issuers of their responsibility to ensure wide distribution. """(e) Public disclosure. (1) Except as provided in paragraph (e)(2) of this section, an issuer shall make the ‘‘public disclosure’’ of information required by §243.100(a) by furnishing to or filing with the Commission a Form 8–K (17 CFR 249.308) disclosing that information. (2) An issuer shall be exempt from the requirement to furnish or file a Form 8–K if it instead disseminates the information through another method (or combination of methods) of disclosure that is reasonably designed to provide broad, non-exclusionary distribution of the information to the public."""
  - slykat 13y ago
    Thanks, that's what I was asking about. Makes sense that the SEC allows this if the content is accessible to anyone without login and the content is crawl-able by search engines (i.e. easily discovered).

opminion 13y ago

It looks like an old world rule applied to the new world. In the old world it was expensive to publish, so it was accepted that publication takes place in non-free (as in free beer) media. In the new world publication is almost free, and perhaps one would just need to register a URI to point at all relevant information.