The era of post-truth, the problem of the digital prison and subjectification

This study was designed to identify and analyze the causes of two phenomena emerging within digital environments. The first phenomenon is the post-truth condition, and the second is the digital panopticon. Both of these phenomena have been implicated as root causes of a variety of problems in online contexts. The post-truth condition gives rise to numerous issues in digital communication ranging from the propagation of fake news and the aggregation and dissemination of biased information to the generation of mutated variants of original content. The digital panopticon, meanwhile, establishes surveillance systems via digital data, thereby engendering new forms of information control. These include the monitoring of private life, the capitalist appropriation of personal spheres of existence, and the subjugation of individuals through informational dependency. In this paper, I illuminate these phenomena in order to ascertain the fundamental origins of the challenges we face in today’s digital environment. Furthermore, we seek to diagnose the factors that must be considered when devising solutions to these problems.