Nothing to Hide

This short film by Daniel Šuljić called Transparency shows a world where everybody’s completely visible. Your location, your purchases, what you desire, who you talk to. No shadows. No privacy. The system knows exactly what you are. And if there are gaps, if something isn’t visible, you must be hiding something. You must be guilty.

We’re already mostly there. I know this. GPS in my phone, cards that remember every transaction, Instagram where I post enough for the machines to build a profile. Everyone does. Snowden leaked the proof and we panicked for a week, then got used to it. You can’t actually stop using these things. I won’t. The convenience is irresistible.

The nothing to hide argument is what gets me. People say it because they can’t imagine a worse regime, or they’ve already given up, or they genuinely think they’re boring enough to be safe. Šuljić doesn’t try to convince you. He just shows the logic. Transparency as virtue. Opacity as crime. Build a whole world on that equation and see where it goes.

I’ll probably keep doing what I’m doing. I’m not optimistic enough to fight it and not pessimistic enough to really care. The film doesn’t offer solutions. It just shows you the system running, cold and reasonable, reducing everyone to data. There’s something almost restful about that. Knowing you can’t stop it means you can stop pretending you want to.