Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

by Ryan Holiday

Of course they want to send updates to your phone and include you on e-mail alerts. No one is listening to you—they’re laughing at you. They’re glad you’re distracted. They’re happy you’re posting on social media, because it means you’re not showing up at city council meetings, because it means you’re not voting. It’s time that both sides face up to the incredible manipulation that’s happening to both parties (by that I mean people, not political parties). Twitter isn’t designed to help you get in and get out with the best information as quickly as possible—it’s supposed to suck you into either a contentious world of argument and debate or an echo chamber that reassures you everyone thinks like you do. Facebook is supposedly one of the largest news sources in the world, and days after the election, it denied that the news it shared could have possibly impacted users’ behavior in a significant way. With manipulative tactics that range from exploiting the so-called attention gap to giving voice to propagandistic campaign surrogates to addictive UX features to editors warping coverage around their own “narrative,” we’re all drowning in a sea of unreality.