No word permeates contemporary public discourse more than the word "transparency." According to Byung-Chul Han, anyone who limits its use exclusively to issues of corruption or free flow of information overlooks its true dimension. The scope of the concept of "transparency" is revealed only when we strip it of the pretense of "purity" and "democracy," and allow its opaque side to show, the one associated with surveillance and control. In the largely pornographic modern society of exposing the hidden, where anyone who is not exposed simply "does not exist," transparency does not serve the truth. On the contrary, by producing an excessive amount of information, it facilitates the control of human freedoms and electronic policing.

The famous Korean philosopher analyzes the different aspects of the concept of "transparency," examining nine societies in as many chapters: the society of positivity, of exposure, of the obvious, of porn, of acceleration, of the intimate, of information, of revelation, of control.