The SEC tried to silence activist investors. Now they’re fighting back.

Since President Donald Trump took office, the Securities and Exchange Commission has made it more difficult for small and activist investors to raise concerns through the government filing system known as EDGAR. Now they’re pushing back with their own alternative platform, which they call Proxy Open Exchange – or POE.

Literary puns aside, the initiative aims to bring more transparency to an increasingly small space. In January, the SEC said it would no longer allow investors with less than $5 million in stock to use EDGAR to send releases called exempt solicitations to other shareholders. Such documents are often used to outline an investor’s position on a given issue, including climate action, board accountability, and diversity, equity and inclusion.

“We believe a free market requires communication,” said Andrew Behar, CEO of shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, which spearheaded the new site. “If they want to take EDGAR away from us, we’ll give them POE.”

The response was quick. In less than a week, POE has registered 63 files, and dozens more are expected. EDGAR so far only shows 39 exempt solicitations in 2026.

The SEC declined to comment on the POE, but previously told Grist that limiting access to the system was an attempt to limit the government’s scope of action, alleviate burdensome regulation, and reduce the “significant volume” of requests that often require rapid attention. “Over the years, companies have expressed concerns that this misuse has caused confusion among their investor base,” an SEC spokesperson said at the time. “Shareholders may continue to conduct exempt solicitations through other commonly used means, such as press releases, emails, websites, social media and electronic shareholder forums.”

Critics of the move see it as an attempt to silence troublesome investors.

The workaround is not the only attempt at an alternative to the official platform. The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a nonprofit organization, for example, recently began posting on its website the exempt solicitations and proxy notices it receives on matters of interest to its members. Nonetheless, the POE represents the most robust effort yet to fill the void created by the government.

It’s designed to mimic EDGAR, Behar said. It even relies on the same set of codes – called central index keys – to identify individuals and companies publishing posts. Although As You Sow reviews submissions for basic errors, it does not filter content, making POE, like EDGAR, open to all points of view.

“POE is a new and adventurous approach to trying to create a large public website where people of all beliefs can post their solicitations,” said Tim Smith, senior policy advisor at the Interfaith Center, who applauded the idea. “It could be an investor who files a climate resolution. It could be a conservative investor who decides to promote a resolution that challenges diversity, equity or inclusion.”

Any filing is subject to the same antifraud legal provisions required by EDGAR, says Jill Fisch, a business law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “Publications need to be accurate, so this doesn’t change,” she said. What’s new is that POE’s interface is much more user-friendly, she said, calling the government site “a little old and broken.”

However, not everyone adheres to the system. According to Behar, one of the world’s largest proxy advisors – which helps clients research shareholder proposals – will not consider any information that is not on the official platform. ISS declined an interview request and did not respond to written questions. Fisch nevertheless believes that the pool of potential users of the new system is vast.

“The advantage of these public websites is that they are accessible to mutual funds, small institutions, universities, etc. “, she said. She will be curious to see data on the site’s users in the coming weeks and months. But for now, “it’s way too early to tell.”

Fisch will also be watching how businesses react. Some, like Exxon Mobil, which has often opposed shareholder advocacy, may see it as a threat (the company did not respond to an interview request) and launch their own platforms. Or maybe the existence of unregulated alternatives will encourage companies to ask the SEC to refer people to EDGAR, where everything will be in one place.

Whatever the reason, it would be relatively easy for the government to reverse course. “Any new administration or new SEC could change that in an instant,” Smith said. In many ways, this would be an ideal outcome for Behar, who hopes the POE will be temporary.

“We don’t want this to be a necessary platform in perpetuity,” he said. “We hope this will be short-lived. When the administration changes and the SEC returns to its core mission, we expect EDGAR to be restored because transparent information sharing is essential to the free market.”

More often than not, however, Fisch finds that platforms like POE are one-way streets. Even if EDGAR is released, she expects people will continue to find the alternatives useful. “Once investors realize how easy and convenient it is to use the Internet and social media to communicate, I don’t think they’re going to stop,” she said. “The cat’s out of the bag.”