Slashdot Mirror
Brokers Get Strict Social Networking Rules
eldavojohn writes "If you're a broker or work for a brokerage firm then you better think twice before posting content to Facebook and Twitter. It seems the static parts of the pages like your profile must be approved and fall under the watch of FINRA. But a post to Facebook or a tweet might constitute a 'public appearance' representing your firm. Which means that 'firms must supervise these interactive electronic communications under NASD Rule 3010 in a manner reasonably designed to ensure that they do not violate the content requirements of FINRA's communications rules.' It's days like these I'm glad I don't work on Wall Street or have jury duty."
I'm reminded of working at my last job, for the NSW department of education. My team leader was part of a group who were deciding how to implement a restriction they thought was a GREAT idea. All employees would have had to surrender their social networking account names AND passwords, to allow the dept to check on private communications, as an extra protection to children. An existing protection is that despite working in IT and nowhere near kids, we needed to sign off on allowing background checks and state we'd never been convicted of any of a list of crimes they felt would endanger children.
Insane levels of paranoia there. Thankfully I moved away from Sydney in 2009, and found a better job with saner people.
Are you gonne monitor my soft-porn surfing too?
... sounds a lot like Shinra. And we all know well that turned out.
Well at least we have freedom of speech /s
And if you worked for the CIA, would you be complaining that you can't tweet about classified information? If you've chosen to work on Wall Street, the chances are that you accepted that there are some things you can't talk about long before Facebook and Twitter came along (or if you've just started, you know it's part of the territory). So what?
You know why they call brokers, "brokers"? Because if you listen to their advice, you'll end up broke!
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Funny, I was thinking that it's days like his when I'm glad I have no urge to use Facebook :)
You mean days for which you get paid $100,000 each or more, if only you post investment advice according to the most minimal rules? You sound like a broker.
--
make install -not war
Now I don't care that my employees have a personal Facebook page or whatever (beyond hoping they use it safely for their personal sake). What they are restricted from doing is talking about my company in anyway, shape, or form online without approval. It is a breach of the confidentiality agreement they signed as a condition of there employment.
I know I will get a lot of "freedom of speech" bla, bla, bla from the /. crowd, but let me put this way. If an employee can damage a buisness by either getting the company sued, loosing clients, or just in some other way damaging it by posting information about the company online that puts that employees job and everyone else's job in jeopardy, where do you think the freedom of speech line needs to be drawn. Not to mention damage it might cause to a client. In our situation it might even cause physical danger to a client, let alone monetary costs if the wrong information is leaked.
So, it can be the digital equivalent of yelling fire in a theater when there is no fire. The average employee is not authorized to represent our company online, nor do I believe most have a full understanding of the significance of what they are doing online. Even the few that are authorized to publish online (pr, web site updates), have a formal approval process for publication on behalf of the company. It would be no different than if an employee ran an unauthorized advertising in an newspaper, or conducted an interview with a reporter and leaked confidential information. I would fire them all the same. Just because it is online, has not changed the nature of the problem that has always existed for companies. It has just become easier for employees to do.
This rule is exactly backwards. We should be encouraging brokers and trading houses to open up their secrets so we can have a more transparent marketplace. Ideally, every trading comment and every piece of investment advice ought to be more public and more open source than not.
It's just a dumb regulation.
This is my sig.
You wanted more "oversight". You're getting it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Working as an IT Director for a broker/dealer firm a couple years ago, this was policy.
ALL telephone calls into and out of the office were recorded and archived for 10 years. All e-mail was archived for 7. IM was forbidden. ANY web presence, from web site to Facebook must be approved in advance from the compliance department (lawyers). There are web hosting companies that specialize in this, with SEC/FINRA pre-approved content and approval accounts for compliance.
We had finally moved to the state that any new independent financial adviser that joined MUST use a web site with our approved hosting service and may NOT use their own.
Violation were punishable by company imposed fines and the possibility of losing your license, and they were STRICT.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.