We have many offline problems - yes abortion is now more or less illegal in the US. You know what chnaged that? voting. You know what can change it back. Democracy. A VPN won't. Democracy will.
Double down on democracy. It's hard complicated and messy. But there are no silver bullets.
Look Brexit was shit. But it was democratic shit. 20 million people did not get tricked by their Facebook feeds. Hell 20 million people did not get mind controlled by Nigel Farage's "I'm just sayin" approach.
20 million people were asked "the country is run by thousands of highly educated,
slightly patronising, articulate, over-achieving technocrats who want the best for everyone and frequently find the laws of unintended consequences bite and have not yet worked out that not everyone lives in leafy surrey. Do these people annoy you? vote now"
Oh hell I don't know why 20 million people voted for economic and cultural self harm. Because we aren't sharing out the wealth properly I guess. But it was not because "we were tricked". It's because "we refuse to accept the model of how the world works thet you are operating on and want to use ours. The democratic version of Adam Savages "I reject your reality and substitute my own"
The problem is without an agreed reality to substitute everyone put in their favourite untested political world view.
Yes you are immune to the efforts of a trillion dollar industry that has spent the best pet of a century working out exactly how to manipulate you without you even knowing.
Double down on democracy. It's hard complicated and messy. But there are no silver bullets.