In our current era, scientific and technological revolutions grant unprecedented access to information, making ideas and ideologies more impactful. The rise of global networks amplifies this, yet challenges our ability to discern lies and fake narratives. More information, as seen via smartphones, does not always mean more clarity—it can manipulate beliefs and behaviours by exploiting our personal data. This sets the context for historian Yuval Noah Harari’s recent book “Nexus,” which examines how information networks functioned from ancient times to Artificial Intelligence.

He defines information as something that creates new realities by connecting different points into a network. Sometimes networks can be connected without any attempt to represent reality, neither accurate nor erroneous, as when genetic information connects trillions of cells. He also distinguishes different kinds of information, saying, “Misinformation is an honest mistake, occurring when someone tries to represent reality but gets it wrong. Disinformation is a deliberate lie, occurring when someone consciously intends to distort our view of reality.” He concludes that information sometimes represents reality, and sometimes doesn’t. However, it always connects and warns that if no additional steps are taken to tilt the balance in favour of truth, an increase in the amount and speed of information is likely to overwhelm the relatively rare and expensive truthful accounts with much more common and inexpensive types of information.

The advent of the printing press in the thirteenth century revolutionised information technology in printing books on a mass scale at affordable prices. Harari rightfully points out that the establishment of scientific institutions like the Royal Society in Europe initiated self-correcting mechanisms, not the technology of printing, that were the engine of the scientific revolution. While Newspapers, Radio, and television expanded the impact of mass media, the advent of social media platforms through smartphones unfathomably connected the global networking system.

He emphasises that the seed of the information revolution is the computer, which was invented in the 1940s, and everything else, from the internet to Artificial Intelligence, is a by-product. A computer is capable of making decisions by itself, and it can create new ideas by itself. The decision-making power shifted from man to machine. Algorithms auto-play the same kind of stuff again and again, which reinforces the same tendency in the user rather than checking their biases. Now, computers can analyse, manipulate, and generate language, whether with words, sounds, images, or code symbols, tell stories, compose music, fashion images, produce videos, and even write their own code. He argues that the problem we face is not how to deprive computers of all creative potentialities, but rather how to use them in the right direction.

In feudalism, land was important. In capitalism, machines were important. In the present information era, economic power may be concentrated in a single software hub, as Amazon became the United States’s biggest clothing retailer in 2021.

Harari also warns about the misuse of information technology by tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, Baidu, and Alibaba, which not only serve customers and follow government regulations, but also influence and shape the whims of voters and customers. He observes that totalitarian and self proclaimed religious regimes choose to use modern information technology to centralise the flow of information and to strangle truth to maintain order. What holds human networks together tends to be fictional stories, especially stories about intersubjective things like gods, money, and nations. A politician, a movement, or a country might conceivably get ahead here and there with the help of lies and deception, but in the long term, that would be a self-defeating strategy. He cited Nazism and Marxism in the garb of Stalinism as examples of mass insanity destroying societies.

He warns about another danger posed by bots, an automated software programme performing repetitive tasks over a network, often imitating human behaviour, to influence public opinion for political purposes by spreading fake news. It is estimated that more than 50% of web traffic is done by bots. Sometimes, the company’s algorithm may systematically delete content that is against its political policy. He also warns about data colonialism, in which the control of the data of citizens of a country will be in the hands of a foreign software company, to dominate for political purposes. He gives an example of India, which banned the Chinese apps like TikTok, WeChat, and others, fearing psychological warfare, data colonialism, lack of cyberspace, and loss of privacy of people.

Harari concludes that the challenge posed by new computer networks is not simply technological, but political. He urges the development of democratic systems that help people and prevent concentrated control of information. Harari warns that powerful information technologies may divide humanity into separate cocoons, undermining a shared reality. Thus, the main argument is that the rise of information networks makes it crucial to defend truth and inclusive democratic values against manipulation and fragmentation.

Harari is not above his personal biases despite being an expert in information theory. He naively equates the situation in Palestine and Ukraine with the situation in Kashmir, like other pseudo liberals. He squarely blames Burmese Buddhist monks for the migration of the Rohingyas without analysing the Islamic fundamentalist forces in Burma.