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"SOCRATES did not want his words to go fatherless into the world, transcribed on to tablets or books that could circulate without their author's authentication. So he talked with others on the streets of Athens, but wrote and published nothing. The problems to which Socrates pointed are acute in an age of recirculated "news", public relations, global gossip and internet publication. How can we tell which claims and counter-claims are trustworthy when so much information swirls around us?"
"It seems that openness and transparency are set to replace traditions of secrecy and deference. Yet this enthusiasm for more openness has done little to build public trust. If anything, trust has receded as transparency has advanced."
"So it is not surprising that public distrust has grown in the very years in which openness and transparency have been so avidly pursued. Transparency destroys secrecy: but it may not limit the deception and deliberate misinformation that undermine relations of trust. If we want to restore trust we need to reduce deception and lies, rather than secrecy."
"Furthermore, transparency can produce a flood of unsorted information and misinformation that provides little but confusion unless it can be sorted and assessed. It may add to uncertainty rather than to trust. Transparency can even encourage people to be less honest, so increasing deception and reducing reasons for trust."
"Global transparency and complete openness are not the best ways to build or restore trust. We place and refuse trust not because we have torrents of information, but because we can trace specific information to particular sources we can check."
"Socrates's misgivings are not obsolete today. It is very easy to imagine that, in a world where information travels like quicksilver, trust can do the same. It cannot. Placing trust is as demanding today as it was in Athens."
2:04:50 PM Google It! 
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