I don't think we'll ever be able to avoid mass manipulation with the technology we have available - which makes large scale democracy useless and easily control

I don't think we'll ever be able to avoid mass manipulation with the technology we have available - which makes large scale democracy useless and easily controllable by foreign state actors and local political parties. The growing inequality and the increasing government overreach which strangely always seems to benefit a few rich uber-companies is a symptom that our institutions are fairly unreliable. An alternative to more regulation and more surveillance to prevent mass manipulation would be NOT to have the power of millions of people in the hands of a handful of barely-elected representatives and to keep that power in local communities. No more taxes that go to Washington and gets "redistributed" - aka used to enrich the usual lobbyists. No more public services - aka monopolies. Just private local companies providing services to local citizens.