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#darkpatterns

2 posts2 participants0 posts today

hey guys just jumping in here to say that #whatsapp is sketchy AF

"your personal messages are end-to-end encrypted”
= group messages (the primary use case for whatsapp) are NOT encrypted

"advanced chat privacy was turned on”
= wait, i thought u just implied that messages are E2E encrypted. what could "advanced" privacy possibly mean???

"people in this chat can't save media to their device automatically”
= dude what's with all the vague qualifiers like "automatically”? it feels like you are counting on users to never make it to the end of that sentence, leaving them with the impression that they can safely share private pics and those won't be saved or re-shared by anyone, let alone used by meta for surveillance, profiling, and ML model training

Sen. Hassan is on the warpath.

At least 35 data brokers employed #DarkPatterns to discourage #Californian​s from exercising their privacy rights. Researchers say the companies hid legally required web pages from #Google—so people can’t find them.

This U.S. senator is not at all happy, accusing the firms of “requiring people to navigate byzantine labyrinths.” In #SBBlogwatch, we join Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) in her trisyllabic dissatisfaction.

@TheFuturumGroup @TechstrongGroup @SecurityBlvd: securityboulevard.com/2025/08/ #CCPA

What we call "#darkpatterns". The #DROP database scheduled to come online in 2026 will combat this for Californians. "Of 499 #databrokers registered with the state of California, The Markup and CalMatters found 35 instructing search engines to ignore pages with instructions on how consumers can remove their data' calmatters.org/economy/technol

CalMatters · You have a right to delete your data. Some companies are making it extra difficultDozens of companies are hiding how to delete your personal data — instructions required under California law, CalMatters and The Markup found

Social-Media-Verbot für Kinder und Jugendliche?

Social Media erst ab 16 Jahre! Das fordert Schleswig-Holsteins Ministerpräsident Daniel Günther. Mittlerweile hat seine ehemalige Kabinettskollegin, Bundesbildungsministerin Karin Prien, eine Arbeitsgruppe eingesetzt, die sich dieses Thema annehmen soll. Zeit, die Argumente zu sortieren.

Gesamten Beitrag anschauen > kaffeeringe.de/2025/07/24/soci

Replied in thread

@lolgop I support this idea and I will probably sign the petition (I’m a TM customer. Still mulling over whether I want to support Verizon or AT&T instead).

I support #TeslaTakedown and participated in one of their protests. But look at how scummy this petition is.

First I notice that they inform me that I “may receive” email from a bunch of groups. That’s weird because it implies uncertainty.

Then I notice this microscopic, grey-on-grey text that says “edit subscription preferences”. I haven’t signed in to this site, so how do I even have any preferences to edit? I tap it and it expands to an already-opted-in list of ELEVEN different orgs who will all feel entitled to spam me because they will point to this as the time I affirmatively opted in to receive all their emails.

How many petition signers even see that, much less click it? This is a #DarkPattern and this is really slimy. The ONLY way to be slimier would be to opt me in without even telling me.

The word “preferences” is plural, implying I have more than one preference. In practice my choice is to accept email from all 11 or none. It’s a single preference, hidden from view as much as possible.

Today's moment of frustration: navigating the dark patterns that lead you to enter into debt through buying commodities.

I think we should ban lending small amounts, like anything <€1 000.

Want to pay off a new laptop over a few years? Sure, makes sense!

Want to pay your weekly groceries through ten weekly installments? Why on earth is that even an option...

It's just payday loans with extra steps.

Continued thread

I managed to get a video of this dark pattern. 12 seconds in you can finally see the faint "skip" button pop in. First I have to click the 'What's happening under the hood?" link. Then I have to leave the explanation on the screen for a while, then skip appears.

Here's a nice #darkpattern from #AmazonQDeveloper. Installing it on my #debian laptop and it pops up this GUI. Now, grey text on white background is a completely pedestrian dark pattern.

The thing that is new for me, that isn't obvious from a single screenshot, is that the "skip" grey text doesn't appear at all for like 10-20 seconds. When you first see this dialog box, there's no 'skip' button. This might lead you to believe it isn't possible to skip. I tend to read things that pop up. And so while I was reading the skip button appeared.

Thanks #darkpatterns

Tried to delete my Airbnb account. Saw a "Deactivate" button and thought - wow, guess I was wrong about corporations going out of their way to hold on to their property (your data).

But nope, turns out deletion is a separate process.

Airbnb: "Just contact support to reactivate."
Support: "Please login."
Support: "Sorry, you can’t login, this account is deactivated." 🤷‍♂️

Love a good dark pattern.

Regulator and lawmakers around the world are finally targeting organisations that use #darkpatterns to manipulate consumers into using products or services.

Chandni Gupta, Deputy CEO of the Consumer Policy Research Centre (and friend of EFA) has wrapped up some fantastic research on this issue. Chandni met with scores of regulators, enforcement agencies, consumer advocacy groups and choice architecture experts in the US, UK, Singapore and India about dark patterns and how they regulate them.

Case in point is Amazon's Project Iliad, a process designed to make it harder for customers to cancel their Prime membership. How? By making the process so needlessly complex that many users would give up and abandon the form.

Chandni writes that Australia is falling behind on protecting citizens from dark patterns. Legislating consumer potections against dark patterns is vital to protect us from manipulation of our behaviour and choices online.

Read the CPRC report: cprc.org.au/report/made-to-man

CPRCMade to Manipulate - CPRCDeceptive and manipulative design features—known as dark patterns—are embedded into websites and apps to influence our choices, often not in our best interests. From subscription traps that make cancelling nearly impossible to pre-ticked boxes that share more of our data, these subtle yet sinister practices may appear as mild annoyances individually, but their cumulative effect is costing Australians financially, compromising privacy, and degrading online experiences.