[helen___keller]

You hit the nail on the head.

The internet has opened pandora's box of mass psychological hacking.

The only way from here is to wait and see whether we can survive like this indefinitely - maybe we'll all collectively build a resistance to media constructed to hijack our emotions. In the meantime we will each have to one by one watch our friends and relatives dive down rabbit holes of propaganda and rage. I've seen this firsthand over the past year and it's not pretty.

[patentatt]

I wouldn't hold my breath. This stuff operates on an emotional level, not a cognitive/intellectual level. Emotions are powerful because they are largely opaque to most people most of the time and are a strong driver of behavior. Like the old saying: you can't reason a person out of a position or belief that they didn't reason themselves into. As long as this emotional manipulation is profitable (e.g., 'engagement'), I don't see a way out of this.

[boublepop]

that line of logic falls apart when you consider that Finland: who ranks at the top, also has the internet.