If you follow Wall Street or the business news, you probably heard a little scandalous post from Reed Hastings, a pompous ass C.E.O. from Netflix. Hastings used his private Facebook account to disclose financial information, that allegedly the public has a right to know.
His Facebook account (not a page mind you) is private. Allegedly the information he posted, is only visible to his friends. Again, this man is the C.E.O. of an American company that trades on the NASDAQ Stock Market, and a company that has to comply with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This is not a startup company, not a privately held business, and not something coming out of mums and dad’s basement. The man is posting data that would be expected from the latter and NOT the former. This man has a rap sheet of posting “material information” that could impact that NASDAQ traded stock, and using his blog on the Netflix website and in other venues that the S.E.C. prohibits at this time.
Sorry Reed, you can’t have it both ways, keep the general public out of your postings from your PRIVATE Facebook account. Courtesy: Facebook
I’m not going into a political issue, discussing rights and wrongs, what I will discuss is how public officials are using private accounts and using that as a backdoor to a growing world of Destruction of Public trust for a public entity (i.e. corruption.) Corruption is more dangerous to society in my opinion that anything else.
Definition:
“dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery : the journalist who wants to expose corruption in high places.”
dictionary.app from my Mac.
Key word in this issue is “dishonest”. Dishonest by using something such as a private Facebook account to discuss something of allegedly financial impact to a large company.
Ok, I don’t get this. Why in the hell is a C.E.O. is allowed to have a private Facebook account? If he wants to have something like that for his position, he should contact the PR department and issue a Facebook page controlled by the PR (or in this case the Investor Relations people), to make sure he is in compliant of all laws! C.E.O.s do not have the time to Facebook. Sorry, it is what it is. I don’t care if its 2012 or 2050 when we will allegedly be using wearable computers, C.E.O.s need to be sitting down in an office with a Windows NT issued workstation/laptop and abide by Corporate IT policies and comply with many laws whether you like it or not.
And who in their left minds think its cool to literally befriending an executive elected by company shareholders? It is a lack of disrespect! If you work in the industry or work for Netflix this shows how shallow this social society has become. And all the Silicon Valley boys who should be in jail some way shape or form for being cool, have no opposition.
I’ve said before, I grew up against the Baby Boomer generation, and when I see those people and their Millenial offsprings and how disrespecful they are and how many “friends” they have – as someone who feels that he needs to be a little scared by the big boss for a value of respect is just an utter shame!
I really am ASHAMED for seeing how many people are so “autistic” and the really autistic individuals are your old fashioned, law abiding, respectful “normal” citizens. I can’t believe I am saying that only 5 years ago it was unknown if MySpace was going to have legs or Facebook sustaining. Now there is all these social media all over the place enabling corrupted behavior!
If I was the Federal attorney, I’d throw him in the slammer. If he is doing PUBLIC business behind a PRIVATE Facebook account, that’s a violation of SEC laws in some form. We could appreciate having less bastards in the uber world called Silicon Valley. It is YOU that are destroying the social standards!
SHAME!