Systemic Digital Exploitation and Counteractive Persuasive Technologies: intermediate-level concept synthesis from an...

While persuasive technologies traditionally aim to drive positive behavioral changes, modern digital ecosystems increasingly weaponize persuasion to harm users through phenomena like Deceptive Patterns, Algorithmic Profiling, and Information Disorder. This covert exploitation undermines user autonomy and the fundamental right to mental self-determination. As legal frameworks to address these threats take time to implement, we approach the problem through a proactive technological lens. In this hypothesis and theory paper, we present an annotated portfolio comprising mitigation tools (n = 3) from our prior applied research, sharing a common design lineage (a deceptive pattern resistance game, a privacy transparency tool, and a proactive Socratic nudging tool). Based on the structural similarities we identified across these tools and the phenomena they counter, we propose two concepts to help guide future design and research: Systemic Digital Exploitation (SDE) and Counteractive Persuasive Technologies (CPT). SDE hypothesizes that these (and similar) disparate digital harms share the structural similarity of exploiting psychological vulnerabilities to create a Knowledge-Behavior Gap, bypassing rational decision-making. In response, CPTs actively deploy persuasive strategies to neutralize SDE, bridging the Knowledge-Behavior Gap to restore user autonomy and scaffold mental self-determination. We arrive at these frameworks through a retrospective analysis of our prior work, presenting no new empirical data.