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Who came up with the term dark patterns? It's psychological manipulation and fraud, pure and simple
by Bakary 6y ago
Who came up with the term dark patterns? It's psychological manipulation and fraud, pure and simple
- hnuser123456 6y agoBecause there are shades of gray
- Bakary 6y agoThere's a spectrum of gray in the effect and scale of the manipulation, but deciding to manipulate the user or not is a binary choice.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoIs it? It's comforting to think so, but I'm not convinced there's a meaningful dichotomy that can be drawn. I add a "save this card" functionality to my store so users don't have to type it in every time they buy something: am I offering a neat convenience feature, or am I manipulating them by reducing the psychological barrier of a sale?
- Bakary 6y ago>Is it? It's comforting to think so, but I'm not convinced there's a meaningful dichotomy that can be drawn. I rework my store's checkout workflow, making it simpler so users only have to click a couple buttons to buy a product: am I making their lives easier, or am I manipulating them by reducing the psychological barrier of a sale? "making their lives easier" implies that the purchase is the default outcome that the user needs to improve their lives, when the purchase could simply not be made at all. As long as the intention is to make more money, and that the effort expended does not improve the nature of what is purchased in some way, I'd say it technically qualifies even if the consequences are the lightest of grays. That said, your example is thoughtful, and you are probably right overall. We could look at the broader context of all these systems encouraging consumption, but that would be moving the goalposts on my part. edit: just to clarify an edit took place while I was replying
- slabity 6y ago> Who came up with the term dark patterns? Harry Brignull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern
- s_dev 6y agoWould you consider the fact that bread and fruit and veg are always at the start of a supermarket journey a dark pattern? Supermarkets have gotten customers to spend more than they intended with all their patterns as well -- just like social media sites get customers to spend more time online. It's just what they optimise for. The concept is much older than the coined word.
- Semaphor 6y agobut they aren't? Fruit and veggies are first for our (Germany) two largest chains, bread isn't second for either. Aldi has neither at the beginning.
- maweki 6y agoHighly depends on the Aldi. Mine does indeed start with bread but has Veg at the end of the first aisle across the refridgerated goods. I would guess that the position of the bread depends on the infrastructure, specifically where the baking station can be built.
- Bakary 6y ago>Would you consider the fact that bread and fruit and veg are always at the start of a supermarket journey a dark pattern? No, because the term seems superfluous or euphemistical to me. But yes in the sense that it is psychological manipulation. Is an entity intentionally deceiving or manipulating the customer/user/etc. using their understanding of psychology? Psychological manipulation >The concept is much older than the coined word Indeed, we already have a name for it as I've been trying to say!
- ben509 6y agoMost of a supermarket's layout is determined by hard requirements like refrigeration, stocking heavy items and handling payments. If you're wondering why, for instance, the milk is in the back, it's because it needs to stay cool and it's heavy.
- Silhouette 6y ago
- rapnie 6y agoAnother alternative proposed to IETF inclusive terminology draft is 'deception pattern'. https://github.com/ietf/terminology https://github.com/ietf/terminology
- Bakary 6y agoI can't say I completely agree with the philosophical outlook behind this list, but this specific term you cite seems like a clear improvement
- alentist 6y ago> Sanity check → Quick check, confidence check, coherence check > Crazy → Unexpected, surprising, puzzling > Dummy value → Placeholder value, sample value They're getting more and more ridiculous with this Newspeak nonsense.
- dominotw 6y ago> fraud then take them to court and make a killing.
- shadowgovt 6y agoPrecisely why the new term was devised: dark patterns are not, in general, technically fraud. They are playing completely within the rules but taking advantage of human psychology to tilt the outcome in the direction the website owner wants (and, it is assumed, against what the average user wants).
- neltnerb 6y agoWell, an interpretation of the rules that their lawyers said was at least justifiable enough to make a legal argument out of. It's hard to write rules when the readers are incentivized strongly to use any ambiguity as a weak spot to attack and use as a workaround rather than following intent. Following intent isn't a good legal framework either, of course, better to make the people with legal training work hard to write them correctly once rather than making them complicated to interpret.
- Bakary 6y agoI sincerely doubt that much financial reward will come for any random individual doing this to any randomly selected website in that sample that does not meet the GDPR requirements. On one hand, you've technically got the right idea that I ought to put some skin in the game. On the other, it's a reasoning meant to shut down criticism on the same level as the infamous "yet you participate in society, curious!" comic
- dominotw 6y ago> I sincerely doubt that much financial reward will come for any random individual doing this to any randomly selected website in that sample that does not meet the GDPR requirements. Then whats the point of GDPR if its not worth taking them to court. Is the idea that only govt can bring them to justice?
- kspacewalk2 6y agoYour comment lacks any explanation at all. Why is the term 'dark patterns' 'psychological manipulation and fraud'?
- Bakary 6y agoEvery time I see the term 'dark pattern', it's always a case of one or the other, with the delineation into fraud varying depending on the relevant laws. In this case, they mention how websites skirt the minimum GDPR requirements and trick the users to do what they want, so it looks to be both. The term is in the best case superfluous, in the worst case a harmful euphemism.
- hinkley 6y agoYour top level post reads as if people who use 'dark patterns' as a term have an agenda, and that agenda is fraud and psychological manipulation.
- Bakary 6y agoI don't think everyone who uses that term has an agenda. I'm sure most have good intentions, or just are naturally attracted to new buzzwords. It just so happens the term does play into the agenda of those who have one and who manipulate others psychologically in this way. The whole topic is a sensitive one. I'm sure a sizeable number here on HN derive some direct or indirect profit from such practices (running, being employed in or having stock in a company that does this sort of thing, especially FAANGs) while also having some dissonant misgivings about how the internet and technology is evolving. Terms like 'dark patterns' only serve to deepen this confusion and create additional moral distance between such tech workers and the consequences of their work, even if they are not necessarily intended to be nefarious: therefore, we ought to discourage it whenever possible. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, none of what I say here will actually have an effect on any of this, but it's fun to discuss these topics all the same. In any case, I don't see how any of this can be inferred from that single original sentence, but I'll take your word for it.
- SilasX 6y agoSo "dark pattern" is a dark pattern?