Self-reflection is far outside their model?
The model they are using is of probably-morally-contemptible PUA folk. Morally contemptible people are morally contemptible. Good people don't become morally contemptible. If someone becomes a PUA-esque person after engaging in reflection then that just means they were morally contemptible beforehand as well. And morally contemptible people don't engage in self-reflection anyway so they'd they'd never end up as a PUA-esque person. People who engage in self-reflection properly will look like fuzzily imagined knights in shining armor, because they are not mo...
Influence and manipulation are both attempts to alter the actions or propensity to act of another agent. The only difference between the two that can generally relied upon is that the one who calls it manipulation finds it distasteful or immoral. If you disagree I invite you to find a general principle cleanly dividing the following examples into manipulation and influence; all the better if it can be made uncontroversial.
A woman telling her long-term boyfriend that they're not getting married before he gets his doctorate.
A man teasing a friend.
A man teasing a female friend.
A man teasing a female friend, flirting.
A man teasing a female friend, flirting with intent.
A man teasing a woman he met ten minutes ago, flirting with intent.
A woman encouraging her son to become a teacher because the job security is good.
A woman encouraging her son to become a lawyer because he'll be better able to support her in her old age.
I'm not denying that manipulation and influence can be usefully distinguished. I do not believe they can but I haven't spent the last month thinking about it on and off. There might exist a Schelling point dividing bidirectional communication into socially acceptable influence and unacceptable manipulation, a lawyerly thing, useful but without any defensible reason to be there exactly but that it must be somewhere and we have come to an agreement that here will do. If you believe that there is a point that actually is pragmatically better than another by a real margin, please state it, and defend your proposition.