When more information leads to less knowledge

My professional insights · Lyudmil Karaulanov · 6 min read

Published: 15 August 2026 · Version 1.0

A rereading of Timur Kuran and Cass Sunstein, Availability Cascades and Risk Regulation, and Shoshana Zuboff, Big Other

Organizations assume that more information means a more complete picture. But information does not accumulate as a neutral resource. It is repeated, selected, and directed. Sometimes it gains weight without becoming more credible. Other times its collection ceases to serve the decision and begins to serve control.

Timur Kuran and Cass Sunstein examine how a claim can become publicly convincing through its spread. Shoshana Zuboff examines how human experience becomes data for prediction and influence. Their subjects are different, but together they pose an important managerial question: how can an organization remain informed without mistaking repetition for evidence and visibility for knowledge.

Repetition as apparent evidence

In Availability Cascades and Risk Regulation, Kuran and Sunstein describe a self‑reinforcing process. A claim attracts attention. Its frequent repetition makes it easier to recall and more likely to seem true at first glance. When people see that others accept it, reputational pressure appears not to remain outside the shared assessment.

The mechanism can be recognized inside organizations as well. Someone labels an employee as unreliable. The next people hear the assessment and begin to interpret the employee's behavior through it. At some point the organization no longer says "there is doubt," but "everyone knows."

Thus arises a particular kind of information asymmetry: many share the same assessment, but almost no one possesses the knowledge from which it originated.

Repetition and independent confirmation

Ten people who reproduce a claim from one source do not provide ten confirmations. They provide one claim with nine repetitions. Independent observations can outline a pattern. Dependent repetition creates the feeling of one.

Information hygiene requires tracing the origin. Who observed the fact? Who heard it from someone else? What has been verified and what remains interpretation? This does not mean the rumor should be dismissed. It can be an early signal and grounds for verification, but not a substitute for evidence.

When informativeness becomes surveillance

In Big Other, Zuboff analyzes a different logic: parts of human experience are extracted as behavioral data and used to predict or steer future behavior. The text is not about internal communication, but it shows a broader danger. The collection of information may cease to be a means for a specific decision and become a constant demand for visibility.

In business this often begins with a reasonable intention. The manager wants to understand what hinders the team. The organization introduces individual conversations, surveys, evaluations, and activity measurement. Each tool may have a legitimate purpose. Together, however, they can create an expectation that the employee must make their motivation, moods, and personal difficulties visible.

Then sincerity begins to resemble an obligation to disclose. A manager may need to know that a temporary circumstance limits the employee's work. From this does not follow a right to learn all personal details. The difference is between information necessary for the decision and information that simply can be obtained.

When measurement changes behavior

Data collection not only describes the work environment. It changes it. When employees know that a certain indicator is being monitored, they begin to adjust their behavior to it. Reported activity may increase without the result improving. Visible agreement may rise while actual trust declines.

That is why every new source of information must have a clear purpose. What decision will it support? Who will use it? How long will it be needed? If the organization cannot answer, it is likely collecting data for the mere possibility of possessing it. This creates more visibility but not necessarily more understanding.

The two failures of the information environment

In the first failure, the organization checks too little. One assessment is repeated and gradually accepted as fact. In the second, it collects too much. The desire not to miss anything becomes a claim for constant visibility over people.

In both cases, more circulating information does not create more knowledge. The organization may have reports, records, and indicators, but important decisions may be based on unverified assumptions. It may know more and more about its employees and less and less about the reasons why they remain silent.

What remains after the rereading

Kuran and Sunstein remind us that the spread of a claim is part of its history, but does not prove its truth. Zuboff shows that the ability to collect information does not itself create a right for it to be demanded and used.

This is the link to the analysis Information Hygiene as a Managerial Discipline. Management must determine what it needs to know, how it will verify it, who has grounds to receive it, and what must remain protected.

An organization does not become more reasonable when it knows everything. It becomes more reasonable when it distinguishes knowledge from its convincing imitations.

Sources

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This material is of a general analytical nature and does not constitute individual legal, tax, financial or investment advice.