[api]

Personally I think what private companies are doing in that department is more egregious than what governments (even other governments) are doing.

Just pick up a mobile phone and start grabbing random games and apps and look at how they're built. They're all Skinner box devices built using the same control techniques as slot machines to suck people in and gradually addict them and then get them to make endless purchases or invite other people to the app. It's really incredibly toxic.

Then you have social media whose weighting and manipulation of content to "maximize engagement" drives not only social media addiction but a host of mental health problems across our entire culture including among the young.

If governments did half of this they'd be compared to Nazis.

[4gotunameagain]

That does not mean that governments are not doing it as well, or that we should discount their practices just because corporations are doing it a lot as well.

Even just the fact that the US army allows Hollywood directors access to military equipment with a say on the script as an exchange, so that they can brainwash young uneducated men to enrol and go fight an imperialist war in some foreign country could easily be labelled internal propaganda.

[newsclues]

Maybe governments just outsourced the work?

[api]

Profit motive provides plenty of motivation without government prodding. It's all about making you stare at that device as long as possible so you watch ads or making you send payments for loot boxes. It's just amoral profit seeking behavior.

Not saying there couldn’t be government involvement just that it’s not necessary to explain this stuff.