The transparent society

Back in 2003 I gave a presentation to investors who wanted to know about Internet trends.  Truth be told, they cared less about trends and more about stock tickers. My last slide for that presentation was a picture of Tadao Ando's Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.  Essentially, I ended the presentation by admitting that I was terrible at predicting trends. But what I felt strongly about was that we would become more transparent. Whatever the consequence of that would be, I didn't know. Based on their blank stares, they didn't know either. Nor did they quite understand why I was talking about transparent societies. If they could invest in such an idea, however, I'm sure they would have been all ears. Nonetheless, I left it up to them to decide what transparency means to them, and how transparency would change consumer behavior, and create demand for certain products developed by companies they may one day want to invest in. It's been a long time since that presentation. I finally got the chance to use that "Transparent Society" title in a recent column on MarketWatch.

Read my Net Sense column on MarketWatch

Once again, I wondered what the consequence of such a society would be. I think it's that we all get to know who we truly are at the core. And, I'm pretty sure it won't look all that pleasant.  Consider this, would you really want to see those photos of you during your bacchanalian days?  David Sifry - CEO and founder of Technorati - predicts that in 40 years, we won't be asking about whether the presidential candidates inhaled. Rather, we'll be asking: "What does his Facebook profile say about him?" Sifry thinks that transparency will make us all tolerant of one another. I agree. After all, we won't be able to hide from anyone. 

Comments

[David]

In response to your Net Sense "Transparent Society" column, and particularly about privacy...

I own a marketing business that provides sponsored real-time games to sports-broadcast watchers— sort of sports-bingo on the web.
As prizes my clients have offered items of varying value, from t-shirts to automobiles.

Although prize values may vary, we see little difference in the willingness of our users to consistently divulge the same information regardless of the actual benefit. Granted, we don’t ask for deeply personal info, nor would we expect to receive it, considering that our sites are communities of affinity (interest in a particular sports team), rather than communities of contribution/recognition (Facebook, youtube, or even a moviephone movie review opportunity). Many in our culture— especially the younger electronic generation— are in search of, along with a rewarding experience, their 15 minutes. Incremental privacy loss is the currency in trade.

Additionally, I believe the electronic culture has a certain resignation to the fact that the modern age, with its innumerable data-mining technologies, cross-referencing databses, barcoded, and soon to be RFID’d everything, hasn’t even the facade of privacy. Whatever information we’re giving up for an immediate tangible benefit, somebody already knows or will infer and ultimately tie back to us anyway, someday. In that case, when we trade away certain information for an immediate direct benefit, perhaps we’re selling high.

And finally, about transparency leading to tolerance: as an optimist, I want to believe that's true. However, the realist in me is inclined to think Mark Twain's famous quote--"Familiarity breeds contempt."--is probably a better estimate of human nature at any time and in any medium.

[Bruce Daley]

Really the issue is not transparency but accountability. Having your dirty laundry indexed and accessible to everyone with a connection to the internet is only a problem if someone uses that information to his or her advantage.

Have you ever looked up someone's blog before you went on a date? Have you ever turned down a date because you did not like what he said in his blog?

It happens all the time on MySpace. Will it someday happen on job interview too?

[Yossi Goldlust]

This whole question is very good food for thought. Will the increased transparency into individuals' backgrounds that online profiles, blogs, etc. create lead to more tolerance in our society? Hmmm...

There's definitely a correlation between tolerance in a society and the free flow of information. All authoritarian societies are built on limiting all but a select few individuals' ability to access information (including learning about other people's backgrounds).

But is the relationship strictly linear or is there a bell shaped curve? What happens when everyone is constantly filtering massive amounts of information about everyone else and people don't have a lot of time to make decisions (like in the situations described by Malcolm Gladwell in the book Blink)?

[Dave Scotese]

In your article, you suggested that the transparency the youth culture offers might put them on a tighter leash than they know. Yes, I agree, the glass is half empty. But doesn't that make you a pessimist?

We all follow rules out of the fear that breaking them will have consequences. Some of the rules are "enforced" by nature (so we don't play catch with knives), and some are "enforced" by taxation (so we don't run red lights, even in the dead of night). In between these two extreme sources of enforcement are the reactions of our friends. Of these three sources, the first is unavoidable and the second is natural, efficient, and provides security and comfort to all. I do not wish to describe the third because it angers me so.

So if you're going to present transparency as a shorter leash and make people feel like it's a bad thing, think about the transparency that governments try to force upon other governments, because that will certainly turn you around and make you cheer for it. If we can wrest that control from governments through the use of social networks and the voulntary degradation of privacy, I'm completely for it.

Mark Twain was making fun of fools. Really, if familiarity bred contempt for all, we'd still be tree shrews. I like to focus more on the higher nature of humans rather than our baser natures. Transparency seems to increase the reward for using this perspective.