Pandemic and Infodemic

Abstract

This article aims to explore the connection between the conflicts in informa- tion policies being observed during the present pandemic situation and the poten- tial abuse of automation technologies in the processing of information. From a his- torical point of view, the connection between an effective elaboration of information and the development of automation technologies was devised by authors such as Norbert Wiener, Claude Shannon and Alan Turing, at the very beginning of the modern theory of information. This link with today seems to be justified by histor- ical circumstances that are still quoted in order to discipline and “militarise” the spreading of information during the pandemic. On the contrary, it may be shown that automation cannot by itself guarantee the most appropriate diffusion and sharing of information during a global crisis. However, according to other authors such as Gilbert Simondon, a certain margin of indetermination must be intro- duced into any automatic process to permit a machine to work properly and rightly serve the cause of its users.