The Era of Pretended Transparency

Finally and for the first time, Facebook released a report that allegedly discloses the global government requests for data. The report details (among other things) the name of country, the number of requests and the percentage of disclosed data by Facebook.

It is NICE that Facebook finally publishes a report about government data request. OK, it is important!

Google for example has been doing that regularly since 2009 with the Google Transparency Report. A report that is more detailed and gives more information (as it should) to users.

“Transparency and trust are core values at Facebook ”  the report says. But now after Snowden-Gate, we know that certain governments (say the US) have direct access to data from Facebook and other big companies.

Shouldn’t Facebook disclose information about this as well? How much data and what kind of data is extracted on a daily basis by governments (say the US)? Of course Facebook is not the issue. The same request can be made to Google, Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft or name it.

Publishing a report and pretending it is transparency, is a good way to mask relevant information that should be accessible to users.

Tags: Facebook, Transparency