In an effort to excite people about Netflix, CEO Reed Hastings unintentionally landed in some hot water with the SEC.  Millions of employees have found themselves in bad situations because of things they’ve posted too publicly on Facebook.  However in this case, Mr. Hastings is taking a lashing for posting “too privately”.

Everyone has heard the horror stories of public Facebook posts gone wrong, from people trash talking their companies straight to the unemployment line to posting obscene behavior in photos for all to see.  But the private vs. public issue has never been so interesting as it is with Reed Hastings’ post deemed “too private” by the SEC.

It all started in July, when Hastings posted on his personal Facebook account that 1 billion hours of content had been viewed by Netflix users in June.  The claim made by the SEC is that Hastings’ 200,000+ Facebook follower audience is not sufficiently public enough or official enough to satisfy investing laws.

Hastings points out that the official Netflix Facebook page made a similar post a few weeks prior, and that the number was not significant enough for investors to warrant an official press release. It appears that both Hastings and Netflix believe this issue will be cleared up after an SEC review process.  It should be interesting to see where the case goes.

What do you think: Was CEO Reed Hastings’ “too private” Facebook post the wrong move?  Share your thoughts on the OPUSfidelis Facebook page.