Internet Encourages Delusions of Persecution, Schizophrenia
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Suppose the government was doing mind control research on civilians, and were getting sloppy. Planting stories like this in the NYT would represent an instantiation of a well established mind control technique to marginalize the group you were experimenting at controlling. Associating them with other mental illnesses in the general population, so as to induce associations when reports from your failed experiments come out is textbook mind control. It's the exact same technique your favorite store uses to market you your favorite product.
Of course, it's also true that many people first feel powerless, then become paranoid to disown responsibility for being a powerless loser. It's a fine line. Personally, I think the idea that there is a many-one relationship between mind control agents and controlled people is ridiculous. They don't need to have many agents doing mind control on one person, because TV gives a mechanism for few agents to control many people, with a higher degree of precision and less resources. Yes, your reality is likely completely programmed by institutionalized sociopathic personalities, euphimistically called corporations ("no it isn't," the reader thought, sipping the mountain dew), but it's narcissistic to think it takes many of them to control one of you. It takes a few of them to control millions of you. I think the root of this kind of paranoia is narcissism and ignorance about how easy mind control and mass manipulation are.