Last week I wrote about the fall of Twitter and how the Trends feature can selectively manipulate what content users are exposed to. And if you do just a tiny bit of research, you’ll see that Facebook, too, curates its Trending stories.

But it’s not just social networking sites that aren’t always telling the truth. If there’s one thing I learned about this election cycle, it’s this: there’s nothing trustworthy or unbiased about the mainstream media.

The main reason for my absolute distrust of major “journalists” stems from the media’s avoidance of the real stories of this election: the Guccifer leaks, the Podesta emails, Hillary Clinton’s failing health, and the Clinton Foundation interest peddling. And it’s not just a lack of awareness of these things. It’s not like these are obscure conspiracy theories from the Deep Web or the bowels of 4chan. These are big stories that the media has not only purposefully chosen not to cover, but has actively suppressed in favor of this. Can you imagine if the situations were reversed, and Donald Trump's campaign was being investigated by the FBI? How much coverage would a Donald Trump campaign financing scandal get?

It’s also important to understand where the stories that are being reported come from. As we saw in the DNC leaks, which uncovered a mess of corruption that started at the top with the disgraced chairwomen Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee has actually been in close contact with the Hillary campaign and helped to perpetuate her nomination over Bernie. The damning emails showed the DNC planting stories, editing articles, and otherwise egregiously colluding with the press. Remember the Trump Tapes? The ones that Access Hollywood sat on for 11 years? Oh yeah, that’s right. We talked about those. The remarks that Donald Trump made to Billy Bush on a hot mic more than a decade ago aren’t even half as bad as the things Hillary has said about young black men (Don’t bother listening toCenk Uygar—he’s the dumbest of all the Young Terks, and that’s really saying something considering they’ve also got Anna Kasparian), Jewish people, and disabled children, as well as the things her campaign has said about Hispanic voters. Notably, antisemitism seems to be a running thread with the Clintons, considering how her campaign at one point aimed to use Bernie's Jewish faith against him.

It’s not just the news media that’s skewing the public perception of the issues in this election, either. Network sitcoms like ABC’s “Fresh Off the Boat” are taking it upon themselves to tackle the big issues, often grossly oversimplifying the issues to fit its moral judgement into a 30-minute time slot with ads. This week’s “Fresh” included an in-depth main plot in which Jessica grappled over the issue of immigration. The most amazing moment of oversimplification occurred when Jessica made the distinction between legal immigration and illegal immigration, but decided to abandon that ideal for an appeal to her own immigrant pathos. Not only was the moment oddly preachy for the show’s normal tone, but it also completely undermined Jessica’s principled, conservative character. The same thing happens every week on Blackish, a show which necessitates the HRC-sanctioned Black Lives Matter worldview, and on American Housewife, which presupposes the premise that every woman should love their bodies except skinny bitches—and that’s just on ABC!

Even Google isn’t completely unbiased. As we’ve discussed, lots of internet media has been proven to be unfairly biased and manipulated. I think the most disappointing example is Google, whose mission statement is “Don’t be evil”. I’m pretty sure manipulating search results falls under “evil”, especially when it’s to deceive undecided voters doing their due diligence before making their decision. As if manipulating search suggestions wasn’t enough, the Podesta leak recently revealed that Google executives are directly connected to the Clinton campaign. Clearly nothing is sacred for these people.

This is why this election cycle is so important. This election will not just be about electing a president, or even about supporting down-ballot candidates. This election will be a rejection of the underhanded tactics of a campaign that’s fought day in and day out to dupe voters, and a referendum on the complicit media and its utter disdain for the American people.