Democratic Transparency in the Platform Society

In the past several years, transparency has emerged as one of the leading accountability mechanisms through which platform companies have attempted to regain the trust of the public, politicians, and regulatory authorities. The goal of this chapter is to contextualize the recent examples of transparency as implemented by platform companies with an overview of the relevant literature on transparency in both theory and practice, consider the potential positive governance impacts of transparency as a form of accountability in the current political moment, and reflect on the shortfalls of transparency that should be considered by legislators, academics, and funders weighing the relative benefits of policy or research dealing with transparency in this area.