Jack Dermody

Transparency for the Win

Organisations and institutions that seek to gain public trust should deal more transparently with the people they interact with.

Information imbalances create power and opportunity for those in the know, and rather than ostensibly democratic governments indulging in such power plays for their own benefit We The Citizens should demand that our governments are held to a higher standard. 

Technology can track the lineage of data and decisions throughout government so that the institutions that are supposed to "level the field" become completely transparent and no longer inscrutable. With transparency comes trust.

As an extension to this, if we were able to follow the lineage of sources for each news story we could regain trust in news providers.

And rather than blindly believing bad actors posting misinformation on Facebook, we could follow the sources via a publicly trusted provider. Any piece of information that does not have a gold standard backing could be flagged as potentially untrustworthy.

As much as technology leads us into darkness, so too can it bring light.