Ethics and Transparency Issues in Digital Platforms: An Overview

Abstract

There is an ever-increasing application of digital platforms that utilize artificial intelligence (AI) in our daily lives. In this context, the matters of transparency and accountability remain major concerns that are yet to be effectively addressed. The aim of this paper is to identify the zones of non-transparency in the context of digital platforms and provide recommendations for improving transparency issues on digital platforms. First, by surveying the literature and reflecting on the concept of platformization, choosing an AI definition that can be adopted by different stakeholders, and utilizing AI ethics, we will identify zones of non-transparency in the context of digital platforms. Second, after identifying the zones of non-transparency, we go beyond a mere summary of existing literature and provide our perspective on how to address the raised concerns. Based on our survey of the literature, we find that three major zones of non-transparency exist in digital platforms. These include a lack of transparency with regard to who contributes to platforms; lack of transparency with regard to who is working behind platforms, the contributions of those workers, and the working conditions of digital workers; and lack of transparency with regard to how algorithms are developed and governed. Considering the abundance of high-level principles in the literature that cannot be easily operationalized, this is an attempt to bridge the gap between principles and operationalization.