No confusion here. By your definition, essentially all trading in stocks represents a "manipulation," since everyone is trading on what they know or think they know about the future (much more the latter than the former). Since this is fundamentally why stocks rise or fall, it's all a big manipulation, right?
If any brokerage firm puts out information that they know to be inaccurate or misleading, let alone false or collusive, and moreover if they profit by that information, then they are liable for prosecution by the SEC. And since these brokerage firms are responsible to their clients, it's unwise in the extreme for them to mislead anyone, and not especially for their own trading gains. That's just a bad business on the one hand, and a felony on the other.
Now, if you are also saying that the brokerage firms and the institutional traders are way ahead of us poor retail investors, then I agree with you 100%. In fact I've said that already, by way of advising everyone who isn't investing tens of millions or more of other people's money to never stare into the hairy eyeball of the market and pretend like you have any control over it. At best, we retail investors are along for the ride, so we have to remain calm and not be herded. I suggest, try not looking at your portfolio at all for a month or two at a time, and see if you can stand it. If you can't, then probably you are a good candidate mutual funds, or maybe even certificates of deposit.