Don't Blame Trump. Blame Section 230 and a New Kind of Brainwashing

Don’t Blame Trump.
Blame Section 230 and a New Kind of Brainwashing

My initial professional intuition when I started my Discovering Truth initiative 8 years ago was that America was being brainwashed. Discovering Truth is the title of a lecture I delivered in 2017, the title of a podcast series of interviews with communication experts, university lectures and a book published in 2023.

As I went out to learn how people discern truth, I discovered the idea of “brainwashing” had already had a strong level of “accepted consumer belief” established from movies like "Manchurian Candidate" and prior books like "The Hidden Persuaders”.

Consumers of information acknowledge the concept of brainwashing. They understand that brainwashing is a way to alter a person’s belief systems and that it is a real process, but one they associate with torture, imprisonment and force. This prevailing belief prevents them from accepting it as something they are vulnerable to, or even able to experience.

Another key learning is that people who are being brainwashed are not aware of the process. Even under the duress of enforced brainwashing techniques like American prisoners experienced in the Korean War, the POW’s were not aware of how their beliefs were being shifted. Even though the belief-change process was being implemented on them, they were not able to disassociate the torture and imprisonment from the belief-change process. This is a valid belief because the death rate for prisoners in the Vietnam War was 15%,, while it was 40% in the Korean War. And, at the end of the Korean War, 22 United Nations soldiers, including 21 Americans and 1 Briton chose not to repatriate, to stay in North Korea. This greatly alarmed people in the military and in the US.

Another key learning is that our written, typed or texted communications are far more intractable than when we communicate face-to-face. We used different part of our brain when we write, type or text versus face-to-face communication. This was a key component used on American POW’s in Korea. By getting the soldiers to express ideas and opinions in writing, over time, it became easier to progressively change their belief systems.

The inability to detect belief-change tactics is especially difficult when people have freedom of choice over the information they take in. The presence of misinformation, propaganda and other forms of related brainwashing, yes, even advertising, are disguised by the assumptions that enforced belief-change doesn’t happen in a free speech society and that it must be accompanied by torture, discomfort, etc. That’s why I tried to understand belief change dynamics in today’s context of social media. Importantly, we are now communicating more via typing/texting (asynchronous communication) than face to face communication (synchronous). This is especially the case since the Covid isolation and our shift to digital versus conventional (65% vs 35%) communication modes. I came to the conclusion that we are unwittingly experiencing a new kind of belief system dynamic. This new insidious form is much harder to perceive, works faster and is far more convincing than most people's accepted benchmark for brainwashing.

What makes today’s brainwashing so bloody dangerous is that the individual plays a role in choosing the information that increasingly radicalizes them because media algorithms automatically detect and reward their interests and biases.

The digital media, especially social media, is untethered to guardrails for truth or accuracy thanks to a communication policy established in 1996, when the internet was in its infancy. In 1996 America’s adult penetration of the internet was only 15% but vastly more developed than the rest of the world. Russia, China, Iran and most other countries did not have a practical internet capability in 1996.

Due to our desire to maintain leadership and because this new medium was expected to grow by subscriptions like telephone service, Congress agreed to make internet distributors of content free of legal liability for harm caused by the content they distribute. That continues to be spelled out in Section 230 of this now antiquated policy. It was expected that the platforms would operate on a “good faith basis” to protect against potential child pornography, illegal appeals, hate speech, human trafficking or foreign information warfare.

Instead of growth through subscriptions, free platforms became popular and America continued to outdistance the world’s development until around 2015 when the rest of the world began to achieve penetration around the tipping point of 70% penetration. Beyond this when the behavioral indicators of consumer interest, the “like”, “share” and “retweet” functions, came into play, the internet quickly became a preferred medium for marketers and advertisers. By 2019, social media accounted for half of all advertising spending in America, and is projected to be 65% digital/35% conventional media in 2026. America’s internet companies make 90-95% of their revenue from advertising. And because we are still wedded to an antiquated and obsolete Section 230 our social media is our only advertising-supported medium without legal consequence for harmful content or harmful advertising practices.

The technology companies who argued for the Section 230 legal exemption in 1996 are now the largest and most powerful force permeating every vein of American life. A relatively concentrated number of big players, often referred to as “Big Tech” have the most dominant control of America’s information than at any other time in our history. It is more accurate to label this a “Technopoly”.

This Technopoly is bigger than our Auto, Aerospace, Fossil Fuel, Gun and Ammunition, or our Consumer Package Goods industries. As our most influential industry it has disproportionate impact on our stock market and powerful financial influence on our political representatives in Washington DC and in every state capital. America has never had its information under such powerful controlling influence by so few large corporations. Yet, unlike our earlier communication technologies of radio and television, we continue to maintain the now dangerous Section 230 protection for the Technopoly.

This enables harmful surveillance of children with algorithms designed to addict their attention and to target users with content based on their interests, habits and biases. Content designed and targeted by machine learning to capture and sustain our attention has one purpose—to sell more advertising and make more profit for the social media providers. Equally concerning is how Section 230 also invites any user, foreign or domestic, private citizen or politician, to communicate divisive and harmful content with no responsibility for truth or consequence. America has simply never had a President with his own social media bully-pulpit (Trump’s Truth Social) and unsecured use of Twitter/X and other social media amplifiers for influencing public opinion. The shield of Section 230 is an open invitation for corruptive persuasion.

To be clear, we are all far more vulnerable to fall into our own particular echo chambers when we rely on information from a media that progressively feeds our biases and has no gates of entry for foreign and domestic adversaries to distort or play with our reality. No political party, religion or private citizen escapes the side effects of algorithmic content targeting and resultant echo chamber radicalization. It isn’t the liberal left or conservative right, not the red or the blue. It is all of us, including you.

Neuro-Dystopian Conditioning: The New Frontier of Brainwashing Persuasion

In an age of constant connectivity, belief manipulation has entered a new era. I call this evolving phenomenon Neuro-Dystopian Conditioning—a modern, insidious form of brainwashing that operates not through overt coercion but through the subtle rewiring of our brains.

The term neuro reflects its basis in brain science. This isn’t pseudoscience or metaphor. Since the late 1960s, when neuroscience began taking shape (with the founding of the Society for Neuroscience in 1969), we’ve gained powerful insights into how human cognition works. The real breakthrough came in the 1990s with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), allowing researchers to observe how the brain changes in real time.

What they discovered was remarkable: the adult brain is not static. It remains malleable and adaptable throughout life, a property known as neuroplasticity. As neurons fire in response to cognitive activity—whether solving problems, interpreting language, or making decisions—some pathways are strengthened, while others are pruned away. In essence, how we think physically shapes the brain.

This adaptive process is usually beneficial, supporting lifelong learning and recovery. But it also opens the door to manipulation. Studies have shown that just weeks of targeted cognitive training—such as memory games or decision-making tasks—can measurably alter brain structure and function. Likewise, UCLA researchers found that as little as five hours of internet use could rewire brain activity in previously offline individuals. On average, children age 8-18 in the United States spend 7 1/2 hours a day watching or using screens. While screens can entertain, teach and keep children occupied, it is alarming that 95% of youth ages 13–17 report using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use social media “almost constantly.” Of further concern is the linkage between cyberbullying and teen suicide, which is now the second leading cause of death among teens. Some studies show that up to 37% of middle and high school students report experiencing online bullying or harassment. The anonymity provided by the internet encourages cyberbullying and sharing of harmful content.

The danger is clear: environments that repeatedly capture our attention, shape our memory, and influence our decision-making can reprogram the neural architecture that underpins belief and identity. This is where Neuro-Dystopian Conditioning emerges—using the brain’s own plasticity to implant preferred narratives, polarize thinking, or dull critical reasoning.

This is not science fiction. Digital platforms, news media, algorithms, and even entertainment now act as powerful cognitive conditioning tools. Repeated exposure to emotionally charged content can strengthen specific belief pathways while weakening alternatives, essentially reinforcing ideological echo chambers at the neural level.

The most vulnerable functions—attention, memory, reasoning, and language comprehension—are the very tools we use to discern truth from manipulation. When these are hijacked or reshaped over time, our resistance to persuasion drops—not because we’ve been convinced, but because we’ve been rewired.

In this light, Neuro-Dystopian Conditioning is not just a metaphor for manipulation—it is a neurologically grounded process of belief engineering. And unless we become more aware of how our cognitive environment shapes our brain, we risk surrendering not just our opinions—but our ability to form them independently.

(Sources: Park & Bischof (2013), Frontiers in Psychology:Voss et al. (2013), PubMed: MRI-based cognitive training: Small et al. (2009), UCLA internet-use study: Harvard Health (2025), Neuroplasticity and cognition.)

This new kind of brainwashing is highly addictive and does not rely on force. This new, stealth form of brainwashing is made possible because 1) there are no standards or guardrails for accuracy, truth or harm in the dominant information mode we are now relying on, thanks to Section 230, and 2) we personally choose the information ourselves. The side effect of this selection psychologically is progressively more intense radicalization of our prevailing beliefs and biases—any biases, left/right, red/blue, black/white, conservative/liberal, Christian/Jew or Muslim-- We’re all affected.

A social media platform without guidelines or entry oversight becomes a breeding ground for manipulative and corrupt persuasion tactics. This is especially likely if there are strong financial incentives and/or significant geopolitical stakes at play. The former speaks to the tremendous revenue growth by the Technopoly, now valued at $1.971 trillion in revenue, by far America’s largest industry. The latter speaks to the proven foreign interference in our social media and our elections from Russia, China and Iran. Interference that is ongoing and undetectable with the protection provided by Section 230.

Perils of Ungoverned Social Media: How Lack of Oversight Invites Corrupt Persuasion

In an age where digital communication shapes public opinion and personal identity, the structure and governance of social media platforms matter more than ever. When a platform lacks clear guidelines or entry oversight, it becomes a fertile ground for manipulative and corrupt persuasion tactics. Without moderation, such spaces can quickly degrade into chaotic environments where truth is malleable, trust is undermined, and influence is often wielded by those with the most aggressive or deceptive tactics. Social media, at its best, is a powerful tool for connection, education, and collective action. However, in the absence of rules or accountability, it can become a weaponized space. Take X (formerly Twitter), for example. Following Elon Musk's acquisition and his rollback of content moderation policies and verification standards, the platform saw a dramatic increase in misinformation, impersonation, and hate speech. The blue verification badge, once a mark of authenticity, became available for purchase—resulting in a wave of fake accounts impersonating politicians, corporations, and public figures. This eroded trust in the platform and allowed bad actors to manipulate public discourse with near impunity.

Similarly, Facebook has faced ongoing scrutiny for its role in spreading misinformation, especially during election cycles. In 2016, the platform was infamously exploited by Russian operatives using fake accounts and targeted ads to sow political division in the U.S. The lack of robust content vetting and the platform’s algorithm—which prioritizes engagement over accuracy—allowed false and inflammatory content to spread faster than verified information. Despite subsequent efforts to improve oversight, Facebook’s initial lack of safeguards had already done significant damage.

The lack of entry oversight also opens the door for bot networks (robots posing as people) and coordinated manipulation campaigns, particularly on platforms like Reddit and Telegram. On Reddit, for instance, coordinated brigading—where users from one subreddit flood another to manipulate opinion or vote counts—has been a recurring issue. Telegram, a Russian-owned platform celebrated for its encryption and anonymity, has become a haven for conspiracy theorists and extremist recruitment, largely because of its resistance to moderation.

Furthermore, psychological persuasion tactics—such as emotional manipulation, echo chambers, and outrage marketing—thrive in unregulated spaces. Without algorithms and content moderation designed to prioritize factual and civil discourse, sensationalism wins. Research from MIT in 2018 showed that false news stories on Twitter spread six times faster than true ones. In unmoderated environments, the incentive structure rewards engagement, (clicks or likes) not truth, allowing the most provocative and polarizing content to dominate feeds.

Defenders of total freedom on social media often argue that any form of moderation stifles free speech. But this is a false dichotomy. Guidelines do not silence voices—they create a framework for constructive conversation. Just as laws in a democratic society protect individual rights while maintaining order, social media governance is essential to ensure that freedom of expression does not devolve into freedom to deceive, manipulate, or harm, which it has.

Not all speech is free. We long ago decided that it is illegal to yell fire at an audience in an unlit movie theater. For years we have classified advertising-supported speech as unprotected speech because it is speech in service of profit-making. Yet, we continue to be cowed by the Technopoly that any modification to Section 230 or even passing of a Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA is long overdue for adoption by our compromised Congress) would impair the Technopoly’s ability to innovate new technologies. It is incredulous that the Technopoly wants to store our private data but resist name identification for user content.

Ultimately, the health of a digital community depends on the standards it sets and enforces. A platform without rules invites chaos, and in chaos, it is not the most truthful or ethical ideas that rise—but the most aggressive, manipulative, and misleading ones. For social media to serve the public good, it must be more than a stage for influence; it must be a space for responsible, informed, and respectful exchange of ideas.

NDC is real. It results in what I call “Raging Bull Syndrome” by those who suffer from it. Perhaps you have seen this behavior from a friend, family member or yourself since the mid- 2000’s when the like, share and retweet functions came into play and caused people’s opinions and beliefs to be more intractable, even violently so. This is not a picture of America I want to tolerate or excuse any longer. The characteristics of dystopian societies look alarmingly similar to what many are seeing today in America. Of course, how you see this depends on what echo chamber you find yourself in.

Noam Chomsky, former Professor at University of Pennsylvania and sometimes called the “Father of Modern Linguistics” is known for his sharp and often controversial critiques of US foreign policy and mass media. His 1958 book argues that mainstream media serves the interests of powerful elites by shaping and filtering news to manufacture public consent or discontent for government and corporate agendas. It is worth considering Chomsky’s perspective from a 40-minute video called “The Harsh Truth About Trump” published on YouTube in June 2025. With Chomsky at 96 years old the video is likely older clips, packaged into a curated compilation.

What follows are highlights from the Chomsky video. Please consider how the process Chomsky reviews did not just surface with the rise of Trump. Our distrust of information and growing radicalization to our biases traces from the Watergate/Nixon deception of 1972-1974; to the Iran hostage crisis of 1979 during the Carter era; to the Iran Contra Scandal during the Reagan administration where arms sales to Iran were secretly/illegally facilitated; to the infamous Clinton lie “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” on national television in 1998: to the 9/11 surprise attack on the World Trade Center in New York: followed by government misinformation leading to invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and our 2003 invasion of Iraq to dismantle an alleged “Weapons of Mass Destruction” program; to the shock of the 2008 election of America’s first black President, who some, including some cable news commentators had misinformedAmerican’s about his birth origin and who maintained this falsity for 5 years after the birth certification was proven; and that disruption coincided with the most significant financial crisis since the Great Depression.

It is against this 50-year backdrop of media and information history that makes Chomsky’s comments poignant for today:

“Social media platforms , cable news and digital outlets remain locked in a race for
attention. And who ever can harness that race for attention, no matter how dishonest or
destructive will have a built-in advantage over anyone clinging to the old norms. This is
the environment we live in now and it is not going to change on its own…in the age of
spectacle, attention is the most valuable currency. And those willing to burn everything
down to get it can dominate even the most sophisticated institutions.

The lesson is simple and sobering. If we do not learn to see through the show we will
remain captives to the next performance. Complacency and silence from the public
enabled the normalization of divisive rhetoric eroding standards of accountability and
civil discourse.

This gradual normalization didn’t happen in a vacuum. It depended on millions of
ordinary people deciding it was easier to stay silent than to confront the ugliness head
on. Some were afraid of losing friends or family. Others told themselves it was just talk,
that it really wouldn’t affect their lives. Still others were simply overwhelmed by the
pace of events and chose to tune out entirely. That collective withdrawal is what made
normalization possible.

Silence is powerful. It signals acceptance. Even if that acceptance is reluctant. When
people stop pushing back, when they stop insisting that words and actions have
consequences, the line between what is acceptable and what is intolerable begins to
blur. This was how insults turned into policy, how dehumanizing language about
immigrants became family separations at the border, how conspiracy theories turned
into real threats. against election workers and public officials.

This erosion of standards wasn’t just about politics. It spread. into everyday life. People
began to mimic the tone they saw modeled at the highest levels of government. Online
discourse became more vicious. Neighbors stopped speaking to each other over political
differences. Families were torn apart by arguments that never would have happened
before. The idea that you could treat people with contempt and expect to still be
respected yourself began to take root.

It is tempting to blame Trump alone for this shift. The truth is he never could have
succeeded without so many people looking the other way. Every time a Senator or
representative excused the inexcusable, they signaled that power mattered more than
principle.

The cumulative effect of this complacency is profound. It creates an environment where
cynicism thrives. If you believe that no one is ever held accountable, that nothing ever
changes why bother caring at all— this is how democracies decay. Not through a single
act of destruction, but through thousands of small abdications of responsibility. Each
moment of silence becomes another brick in the wall separating the country from its
ideals. Millions of Americans still believe the election was stolen, not because there
was any evidence, but because repeating a lie often enough makes it feel true and
because so many people chose not to challenge it forcefully when it mattered most, that
lie took root in the national psyche.

It is worth asking why so many people felt compelled to stay quiet? Some were simply
exhausted… others feared backlash worried they would be targeted online or ostracized in their communities. Some were convinced that speaking out would do no good. But,
history shows that silence is never neutral. When we fail to speak up, we cede the
conversation to the loudest most extreme voices.

One of the most damaging legacies of this period is the erosion of faith in the idea that
truth and decency still matter. If you watch lies go unpunished long enough you can
start to believe that integrity is for fools. If you watched cruelty celebrated long enough,
you could start to believe that empathy is weakness. These are the corrosive lessons of
complacency. And, they are far harder to unlearn than most people realize.

We often imagine that standing up for what’s right requires a heroic moment of courage.
But more often it is a series of small steady refusals to go along. The normalization of
division and cruelty happened because too many people decided those small acts weren’t
worth the trouble. (Another quote I heard was from a protestor when asked- “Do
you really think you can change the world?” The reply:“I don’t do this to change the
world. I do this so this world doesn’t change me.”

When you abandon the expectation that leaders should be truthful, decent and
accountable, you invite more and more extreme behavior. What feels shocking today
becomes normal tomorrow.

And in that slow slide a society loses part of its soul. The constant churn of confusion
and outrage makes people feel overwhelmed and powerless. When that happens they
cling even harder to the voices that promise certainty. No matter how misleading. That
disconnect between official optimism and lived reality created fertile ground for anyone
who could convincingly claim to be an outsider. That’s why simply rejecting Trump as a
singular aberration is a mistake. The forces that elevated Trump are still alive and
evolving, making it essential to question, reflect and refuse to be hypnotized by
charisma or tribal loyalty. The forces that lifted him up were decades in the making:
Distrust of institutions, anger over inequality, cultural backlash against rapid social
change and a media ecosystem that rewards spectacle. Those forces will not vanish on
their own.

Another force that remains potent is the way media has rewired our brains.
Platforms like Facebook, Twitter/X and YouTube reward content that promotes
outrage and amplifies the most extreme voices. The algorithms are indifferent to truth
or decency. The most polarizing content travels the fastest. The most charismatic
provocateurs rise to the top ready to pick up where he leaves off: demonize your
opponents, dismiss critical reporting as fake news, flood the zone with so much
information, some true, much of it false, that no one knows what to believe.

This constant churn of confusion and outrage makes people feel overwhelmed and
powerless. When that happened they clung even harder to the voices that promise
certainty, no matter how misleading.”

Here we are today cancelling books, erasing inconvenient history, suing schools, and refusing federal grant money for education while dangerously expanding our national debt. We are so afraid of technology and looming Artificial Information and Artificial Intelligence, but the Technopoly gets a free pass on responsibility? The Technopoly doesn’t share responsibility for our children’s health and our national security?

No wonder we see so many of our relationships tarnished by the radicalization of our own echo chambers about truth. Whether the power of repeated lies or the willful disinformation being propagated on our wide-open, untethered internet, we can no longer sustain our constitutional republic without communication policy reform and the long overdue removal of the Section 230 truth protection for harmful social media platforms of mass destruction.

Never in the last 50 years have I seen such a crying need for ethical leadership that can point our country in a new direction— not left or right or back again, but for our children’s future.