Does democracy need less transparency?

Transparency is becoming an easy go to as a solution to almost any problem of the algorithmic era. Given the phrase “black box society” this is understandable, as so much of our world is opaque or secretive, that there is a natural desire for more access and scrutiny.Yet in this rush to champion transparency, are we using a broad brush when greater nuance is necessary?For example, personal privacy is essential, but what about corporate privacy or secrecy? Privacy for the individual and transparency for the corporation seems like a sensible balance. Unfortunately we currently have the opposite.What about government however? Should we afford our governments and politicians similar nuance?James G D’Angelo thinks so. He argues that the impact of transparency on politics has been disastrous. That much of the polarization and sensationalism of politics can be traced back to laws that force greater scrutiny of the minutiae of policy development and politicking.

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Jun 24, 2021

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This is a counter intuitive or contrarian position that starts to make sense the more you think of it. Just as we would argue that individuals deserve privacy while corporations do not, perhaps there is a similar analogy here. That legislators deserver reasonable amounts of privacy, whereas the government as an organization does not. James would argue that the construction of policies deserves secrecy, whereas the voting or passage of them does not. He also points out that before the secret ballot, people were often subject to political violence due to how they voted. While James focuses on legislative transparency, I can’t help but see a similar lesson when it comes to the digital world and in particular algorithms. Perhaps there is need for greater nuance there as well.