Fabrizio Saviano:28 November 2025 10:08
We’re in the age of paid deception. Your every click is a private referendum in which they, the algorithms, always win. And they’re never wrong: they observe you, profile you, know you better than your mother. You think you’re choosing the detergent, but instead, the detergent has chosen you.
Advertising no longer sells products. It used to be said that you are the product, but that’s no longer the case. Advertising sells your attention, your reflexes, your tics. Manipulation today is automatic, and the beauty is that they call it “convenience.” They convince you that you make the decisions, but hitting the “ACCEPT” button is already the signature with which you surrender.
The product is your emotions
The real product is no longer you, but your emotions. And those who can predict, provoke, and tame them hold the true power. Alexa, Siri, ChatGPT, Netflix, Tinder are all psychologists disguised as digital assistants, ready to tell you what you want to hear, ready to tailor a reality tailored to you.
It’s the new Faith. God is no longer in Heaven. God is in the Cloud.
You want freedom, but digital freedom is like a restaurant: you can choose what to eat, but the menu has already been decided by others. You think you’re starting a revolution by avoiding Instagram, but you use WhatsApp. You feel rebellious because your search engine is anonymous, but your photos still end up on the phones and social media profiles of friends, colleagues, and family.
The real problem is that, without even realizing it, we like technology to know us, to profile us, to save us from thinking. But behind every technology is a company, and behind every company are people: investors, managers, employees, all focused on generating profits or earning a salary.
The Chain of Manipulation
The manipulation starts from a simple scheme:
Platforms collect data on your behavior through every interaction: searches, likes, time spent on content, pauses, scrolling. Algorithms infer your cognitive functioning: what excites you, what distracts you, what makes you click. They provide you with stimuli tailored to your specific cognitive vulnerabilities. They don’t treat you as an average user: they profile you as a unique cognitive system to exploit.
TikTok rewires your kids’ limbic brains. Google turns your attention into a valuable commodity. ChatGPT gives you the reality you want to hear, not the one that exists. Netflix chooses what you want to watch before you know it.
And it works. Because you’re not fighting a salesperson: you’re fighting a system that has analyzed billions of human behaviors and knows exactly which lever to pull to get you to do what it wants.
The illusion of control
“I have nothing to hide,” many say. Wrong: it’s not about what you hide, but what they make you do with what they know about you. The point isn’t to protect your secrets; it’s to protect your ability to make independent decisions.
Because when the algorithm knows you’re vulnerable to urgency, it will send you notifications with a countdown. When it knows you’re sensitive to social proof, it will show you how many people have already purchased. When it knows you need validation, it will offer you content that confirms your biases.
Lenin said: “A slave who is unaware of being a slave and who does nothing to free himself is truly a slave. But a slave who is aware of being a slave and who fights to free himself is no longer a slave, but a free man.”
If you want Freedom, you need a new antivirus: the antivirus for prefabricated thoughts, for likes that become consensus, for the emotions that program you while you laugh at a meme.
Awareness as a defense
Traditional cybersecurity protects technological systems. But today, the perimeter to defend is no longer just technological: it’s cognitive. The most dangerous vulnerabilities aren’t in firewalls, but in the mental shortcuts we use to make quick decisions.
Cybercriminals know this well. The most effective phishing isn’t the technically sophisticated one: it’s the psychologically calibrated one. Pretexting works because it constructs credible stories that bypass any rational defense. Social engineering exploits your desire to help, your fear of making mistakes, your need to belong.
Defense can’t be just technological. It must be cognitive. And to be effective, it must begin with an understanding of how digital manipulation actually works.
For those who want to delve deeper into the interconnection between digital manipulation, cognitive vulnerabilities, and behavioral defense, the book CYBERCOGNITIVISM 2.0 – Manipulation, Persuasion, and Digital Defense (coming soon to Amazon) offers a detailed analysis of the techniques with which platforms and criminals hack the human brain, and proposes practical frameworks for turning awareness into your new operational defense.
- #cybersecurity
- algorithms
- awareness
- cognitive
- digital defense
- digital manipulation
- emotions
- freedom
- persuasion
Fabrizio Saviano
Fabrizio Saviano is an Authorized Instructor (ISC)² for CISSP certification, a consultant in IT security and governance, persuasive and cognitive technologies. He holds a degree in Communication Sciences with a specialization in Cognitivism, was a selected agent of the Milan Postal Police intrusion team, CISO of a global bank, and started BT Security in Italy.