Facebook’s Transparency is a One-Way Street

Merriam-Webster defines transparency as:

characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices

I'm not sure if Facebook would agree. Or, unknown to us users, they are ready to Open the Kimono as Guy Kawasaki recommended to create engaged employees, and make visible how and with whom they share our information.

And that only reinforces the sense that for Facebook, transparency is a one-way street allowing traffic from us the users to them.

For Facebook, transparency means the default settings share much of my information publicly with strangers including Facebook staff, its partners (unknown to me) and advertisers (also unknown to me). Sure. We can change those settings or not share information on Facebook. And changing those settings is never an easy task nor one made easy for us.

But who is Facebook sharing our information with and why? What is their relationship? Who pays for what?

For Facebook, it means I must explain my reasons for closing any ads that appear on my page. Facebook volunteers us to be part of a user-focus group. They show us ads. We react. They compile our reactions.

If transparency at Facebook was a two-way street, free from pretense or deceit or their appearance, then:

We, as users, would know with whom our information is shared with by Facebook. And for how much. And for what purposes.

We, as users, would be told why Facebook chooses to display which ads. Maybe, Facebook would use to first explain why they would like to offer us several ads to view. Based on specific information on our profile or our content or comments or likes...they think this ad would be of interest. And we could be given the option to see this or have the ads be displayed immediately.

We’re all learning this transparency thing together. A friend of mine on Facebook chided me for being all about sharing things publicly but not really sharing everything publicly. She’s right. I don’t. It was my choice. It is our choice. Her question allowed me to explain why. That’s a two-way conversation, transparent in purpose and content.

Facebook’s conversation about transparent is neither transparent, nor a conversation. It’s an opaque monologue. It's like we're driving down a one-way street with blinding light in our eyes and an anonymous voice saying keep moving, trust us, you'll be fine...

If you would trust us and let us see...then we would trust you.

NOTE:  A good post on this is An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg, by Shel Israel.