Consider this article from Slashdot. It refers in turn to this NYTimes editorial. All of this links back to this blueprint from Google on how to use advertising to manipulate people.
If you read the Slashdot posting, you’ll get the gist of it without having to wade through the other two.
First, notice that this whole thing restricts itself to people who use Google’s search engine. Granted, that’s easily the majority of those who do any searching at all, but by no means a majority of the human race (I use DuckDuckGo exclusively). Thus, as human manipulation goes, it’s broadly effective for things like swaying the mass voting public, since the majority of them don’t really know what they believe in the first place. Yes, things really are that bad.
Second, it probably works only for a short time, in the sense that the majority of those affected by this kind of manipulation are also the same folks who are even more easily manipulated by their physical environment. So whatever it is that makes them a target for manipulation away from supposedly bad political and social leanings is still there in their lives and will eventually push them back into that “bad” path. Of course, it works quite well when you are trying to sell something, because the influence needs to last only as long as it takes to get them to make a purchase.
Third, it simply doesn’t work at all on people who strive to live by their convictions. You can pervert people’s mental awareness, but you cannot change their convictions. If they can be made aware of their convictions, it’s because God wrote those convictions in their hearts. God is most certainly not on the side of the folks who run Google and other Big Tech influencers. These companies owe their very existence completely to the rejection of divine revelation.
So while you may have to struggle with bringing your mind to its knees before your heart, having to push out a lot of nonsense contrary to revelation, these techniques are nothing to fear. We already know the world is going to Hell, so nothing can save it. The best we can hope for is the miracle of God working through us to touch lives with our message. I believe things are in our favor, over the long run.
