On the Face(book) Of It

Facebook filed an Initial Public Offering on February 1, spurring a stream of stories in mainstream and technology publications alike:

• CNET’s top 10 list of surprises in the information
• France 24′s insights into Facebook’s “hacker mentality”
• Blog posts about Facebook’s relationship with Chinese Internet users
• Technology writers’ musings on the future of Facebook

Why is all this information about Facebook in the press today? Because publicly-traded companies must, by U.S. law, release information about their companies.

That makes today a good day to pause and appreciate one of many types of transparency afforded the American public. In many places around the world, this kind of transparency is lacking. And that lack of information makes it difficult for journalists to shine light on businesses, to the great detriment of economies and citizens.