WASHINGTON – Companies can use social media such as Facebook and Twitter to unveil key information about their operations as long as they’ve told investors where to look for it, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Tuesday.

The decision averts a showdown between the SEC and Netflix. The Internet video streaming service got into trouble with the agency last year after CEO Reed Hastings used his personal Facebook account to boast that his company had streamed more than 1 billion hours of content in June.