FROM FALLACY TO ALGORITHM:

Abstract

The rapid proliferation of digital communication technologies has fundamentally restructured the conditions under which public discourse is formed, debated, and suppressed. This article examines how four well-documented discursive manipulation strategies—whataboutism, ad hominem attacks, tokenism, and ostracism—are increasingly automated through artificial intelligence systems, bot networks, and Large Language Models (LLMs), thereby institutionalizing cancel culture as a systematic phenomenon rather than an isolated social practice. Drawing primarily on Jürgen Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action as a theoretical framework, the study argues that the preconditions of genuine communicative rationality—such as mutual comprehensibility, sincerity, and normative legitimacy—are systematically undermined when manipulative fallacies are deployed at algorithmic scale and speed. Building upon the concept of Technological Revaluation proposed by Akpınar (2024), this article contends that technology no longer functions merely as a neutral medium of human communication but has instead achieved its own hegemonic authority, transforming manipulation from an individual rhetorical act into an automated, institutionalized mechanism of social control. The study adopts a qualitative, theory-driven analytical approach utilizing critical discourse analysis. Findings demonstrate that AI-driven manipulation operates through four interlocking modes: algorithmic distraction (whataboutism), automated reputation attacks (ad hominem), performative inclusion (tokenism), and coordinated exclusion (ostracism)—each reinforcing the others within a self-perpetuating cancel culture ecosystem. The article concludes with a call for a communicative AI design ethics grounded in Habermasian principles of discourse ethics.