“Transparency Washing” in the Digital Age
A Corporate Agenda of Procedural Fetishism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22065916 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Monika Zalnieriute (0000-0003-0080-9005, Australian Research Council, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 139-153 |
| Publication date | 2021-04-02 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Analysis of Law (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2291-9732 • E-ISSN: 2291-9732 |
| Publisher | University of Toronto Libraries - UOTL (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.33137/cal.v8i1.36284 |
| OpenAlex | W3138849077 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 1 |
Contemporary discourse on the regulation and governance of the digital environment has often focused on the procedural value of transparency. This article traces the prominence of the concept of transparency in contemporary regulatory debates to the corporate agenda of technology companies. Looking at the latest transparency initiatives of IBM, Google and Facebook, I introduce the concept of “transparency washing,” whereby a focus on transparency acts as an obfuscation and redirection from more substantive and fundamental questions about the concentration of power, substantial policies, and actions of technology behemoths. While the “ethics washing” of the tech giants has become widely acknowledged, “transparency washing” presents a wider critique of corporate discourse and neoliberal governmentality based on procedural fetishism, which detracts from the questions of substantial accountability and obligations by diverting the attention to procedural micro-issues that have little chance of changing the political or legal status quo
Accountability · Business · Corporate governance · Economics · Fetishism · Governmentality · Hegemony · Law and economics · Management · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Sociology · Status quo · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI · Law · Regulation and Compliance Studies
Observing “tuned” advertising on digital platforms
How transparent are transparency reports? Comparative analysis of transparency reporting across online platforms
Power and Protest
The uselessness of AI ethics
Copyright at the margins
Does the Community Understand the Community Guidelines
Typology of transparency as best practice
Transparency ideals in online PR
Competent Third Parties and Content Moderation on Platforms
| Citations per year | 1.8 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |