Byung-Chul Han's 'Infocracy' Analyzes Digital Truth Crisis

Byung-Chul Han's new essay 'Infocracy' (Einaudi, 2023) examines the regime of information that replaces democracy with data-driven totalitarianism. Han opens with the Apple flagship store in New York as a symbol of deceptive transparency. He argues that the infocratic regime, decentralized and rhizomatic, exploits isolated citizens and digital swarms guided by influencers, creating behavioral profiles through private data. This 'digital behaviorism' degenerates into prediction and control of actions, undermining communicative action and the ability to listen. Han contrasts the stable mediocracy of television with the unstable infocracy of influencers, where excitement replaces argumentation. Drawing on Foucault and Shoshana Zuboff, he uses Donald Trump's election campaign to illustrate how meme-filled information exchange becomes functional units ensuring productivity. The fragmentation of truth leads to conspiracy theories, a product of postmodern micronarratives that provide identity in a post-ideological age. Han laments the loss of 'parrhesia' (truth-telling) and describes our condition as a digital cave of obscuration. The book is 88 pages, €12.50, ISBN 9788858441459.