I don’t blame Larry Benson for feeling the way he does about Fox News (“Please get your news from multiple sources,” published March 29) . For every Larry out there, there’s an equally naive person who feels the same about CNN, MSNBC, or (insert news source here). Larry and others have fallen victim to being pawns in a game played by the elites.

Regardless of your ideology, there is a “news” source that will feed your bias. And they do this because it works. They’re feeding off an emotional response in you that produces clicks and views. These clicks and views then translate to ad revenue. This revenue then leads to reinforcement of practice and the cycle continues. Why would the media want to change a habit that is profitable? Why would they want to stop lying to us – or at least filtering the truth through a biased lens – when it’s a formula that works so well? We’ve already given up on accountability, so why stop?

There’s a reason why your data is a commodity. Every click or view or interaction, whether negative or positive, has a direct impact on their revenue and the truth be damned.

As a species, we seem to feed off negativity and violence and interact with the mediums that present it to us. We engage in conflict via text with other accounts or “persons” and bicker back and forth about stupid issues, all while feeding the data machine so they can continue to fine-tune their revenue generating algorithms.

I fear that the formula for control hasn’t been created during our lifetime, but perfected. Don’t think for one second the elites in media and government aren’t aware of our habits because they most certainly are. Remember Edward Snowden? He warned us of this and was immediately branded as a traitor by the same people who do what he warned us about. How’s that for irony?

Your data is being monetized and used for control. They don’t care about you. They care about money. And we keep them employed by engaging in the same stupid interactions and truth-seeking that started this whole process. We click on the same biased headlines and take that information as sacred truth.

You want the truth? Then put down the smartphone, close the laptop, and pick up a book. Start reading about our history and try to figure out how the hell we got here. Maybe look at the history of our government and the lies they have concocted and our media who have presented us with these lies. The Tuskegee Airmen, internment camps, the Bay of Pigs, Gulf of Tonkin, Weapons of Mass Destruction, etc. It would be good for us to ask questions and do some vetting of the information we are being provided.

Unless we change, we’ll continue down the path of blaming each other for the actions of a few. Instead of focusing on their left hand and ignoring the right, we should probably start asking what the hell the right hand is doing.

M James Conway

Enumclaw