Social media is the same as everything else

The partisans of social media, e.g. blogs, facebook, twitter, speak of it fundamentally changing how we interact, ushering in a new age of transparency and direct connections
But, it ends up being like everything else. Consider two examples.

Jim Jubak used to write for MSN Money. While at MSN Money, he started a presence on Facebook. People could become his Facebook friend and receive updates from him. Then one day, Jim Jubak stopped writing for MSN Money. The editors of MSN Money said that he was on haitus. Their note was brief and had few details. Readers of Jubak had many questions, even concern for his health and well-being. The Facebook page should have shed some light on what happened, but there were no updates. It turned out that there was some kind of dispute, and Jim Jubak started a new site. Until the new site was launched, there was very little communication between Jubak and his fans about his status. It was as if he had disappeared from the landscape.

Another example involves The Onion's weekly newspapers. There used to be one for San Francisco, but it stopped being published. While there was coverage in other media, The Onion hardly made a statement about it.
They had (and still have) a vehicle for making annoucements, http://sanfrancisco.decider.com/. I don't recall seeing a message there about the shutdown of the San Francisco edition of the newspaper. This url now redirects to http://www.avclub.com/chicago/. There is no mention that the San Francisco edition existed and is now shut.

What do these two examples prove? Nothing really, except that we have not arrived in Utopia. Social media, or just the relative ease of publishing content on the Internet, has enabled more openness and easier communication. But, when there are things that are uncomfortable or require some discretion, better tools aren't enough for full transparency.