Is Transparency A Good Thing?

Have you ever googled your own name? Well one of my best friends did it for me and told me I was in the autocomplete...scary!

It made me think that transparency seems to be a phenomenon directly linked to the Internet and social media. Hiding from people is becoming more an more complicated, even for totally anonymous persons since we all have profile on different networks.

So you can only imagine how twisted it can get for celebrities, especially for politicians who are supposed to represent their party and electors. The Internet is dissuading political figures to lie to the people because the new technologies make it harder for them to withhold information, which is a good thing.

But every single word that comes out of a politician's mouth is now recorded and posted online, even when it's useless. I don't tolerate the bloopers of French president Sarkozy who insult his opponents when they refuse to shake his hand. But the problem with transparency, is that it totally erased the line between the official speech and what is supposed to be off the record. Ministers and presidents are being judged for the people they are in real life, but the danger with transparency is that it makes people focus on trivial things.

We are lucky to live in a society that doesn't keep the information hidden. But westerns countries have to be careful not to abuse this gift and turn it into a disinformation tool. New technologies allow to record anything at anytime and social media help to spread the news, so let's save this amazing communication flow for information worth sharing!