Do we Live in a Tyranny of Transparency?

Let us begin by saying that for billions of human beings the problem is not that of a tyranny of transparency but that of a tyranny of opacity. Access to information is one of the most striking cleavages between the so-called North and South.

For a majority of Southern countries, the main issues lie in access to information as well as objectivity of the latter. What can we achieve without democratic progress?

For Northern countries, the problem is almost the opposite. Does too much information not kill information? The quality of information, and even more, the perception that we have of this quality are key-components of trust and thus of citizenship. To contrast this issue, and thus to better regulate it, it seems necessary to sort it into spheres of different natures. One needs to distinguish between production and communication of information. Manipulation may occur between the latter spheres. Similarly, one needs to distinguish between economic, political and private spheres.

Only from this classification can we think about the following questions: Which information? To whom? When? Why? And, from this, define several controls (which do not necessarily amount to regulatory measures) aiming to protect the most while restraining the least.