[rando444]

I know it's seems like it's 'dark pattern' week on HN, but not everything is a dark pattern.

Dark Patterns are user interfaces that are designed to trick users.

Facebook requests the permission to go through your stuff and if you read their data use policy, they go so far as to tell you in detail exactly the information they're taking from you, as well as how they use it.

Sure, it's a little bothersome when the information that you've given them goes farther than your personal preference, but it's not a 'dark pattern', it's just a feature that you don't like.

[grandalf]

> it's not a 'dark pattern', it's just a feature that you don't like

It's a similar sort of dark pattern to the practice of putting the important details of a contract hidden in a massive block of text rendered in a tiny font.

Yes, they are technically being upfront about what is going on, in the same way that two pages of 8pt legal boilerplate informs the signer of the details of a written contract.

If it weren't a dark pattern it would be very easy to turn off the undesirable bits, and users would rarely be surprised by the consequences of the default settings.

Let's not forget that contrary to our poor performance on abstract logic puzzles, humans of all levels of intellect are superbly good at reasoning about potentially embarrassing social situations. Hence FB must work hard to de-emphasize the way FB actually works to make people consent to many of the default permissions. That is in my opinion the definition of a dark pattern.

It is the gray area enabled by these practices that makes FB's content interesting... because accidentally over-shared content is interesting to us about a small percentage of the people we are friends with. It's nearly a law of human nature that we are fascinated by obscure details of a small percentage of people for all sorts of reasons (sexual interest, jealousy/aspiration, schadenfreude, stalking, etc.) and we all have some small group of people who are interested in our obscure likes/posts for the same reasons. Rarely do we overtly interact with such people (in either direction) because it is socially awkward, but FB generates revenue/engagement off of the lurking that we all do and the blindness people have that they too are the target of such lurking by others (which is why the dark pattern works)... it's what makes FB scratch a particular voyeuristic itch for people and why it's been so successful. LinkedIn works the same way but for things like job changes, promotions, etc.

[ramblenode]

> Sure, it's a little bothersome when the information that you've given them goes farther than your personal preference, but it's not a 'dark pattern', it's just a feature that you don't like.

Convincing users to accept a feature they would otherwise opt out of if they had a reasonable choice and/or fully understood the feature seems like a textbook dark pattern to me. Hiding the data collection policy inside a giant EULA or using a carrot feature as a lure is indeed intended to trick the user. The fact that many services have adopted these tactics does not change their being dark patterns; it just means dark patterns have proliferated and become the norm.

[dmix]

Indeed, I don't believe the problem here was that Facebook was tricking their users here into handing over their phones/emails contact information (aka this persons client lists). FB is explicit about permissions in this sense, although most users agree to everything without thinking twice.

The real problem is how the information was utilized by the recommendation engine, which is known to be creepily effective at matching people (people who just met for the first time, for example). FB is investing heavily in AI here so this is the natural outcome - where the results are very effective but has some unintended side effects. The side effects are largely due to the fact this connectivity happens in the background, outside of a place where the user can control privacy settings on particular contacts.

So I'm not sure there is an easy solution here. Mining contacts and social information is Facebook's business. It's what you hand over to use the service and why many people stop using Facebook voluntarily - or carefully limit what information they allow access to. I never allow FB to access my phones contacts, for instance, and their mobile app still works fine.

[taurath]

Fundamentally though that's the problem with the modern web - the services that users get is not a transaction in the sense that the user knows what they're giving up for the service - it's all hidden under an innocent permissions check (if it's Facebook) or not said at all (if its LinkedIn). The user provides permission for a small pittance like their email address or phone number and it snowballs into having every want need and action tracked and catalogued to make the service owner money. A product not intent on tricking the user into giving up every bit of the data on their life would ask if it could use individual bits of information to serve them ads and sell their information.

It takes more than it asks, and the fine print is there to cover its ass, when in reality if users were asked about what information they were willing to share they would be much more uptight. The users's have no real idea what is happening with their data, what they've given up or how its used to make the company money. It may be true that most user's don't care, and some might even prefer the outcome to them in the form of "relevant" ads (if the choice is made over "irrelevant" ads or paying for the service). It certainly is transforming what is in the public sphere about people, and the lessening of privacy can certainly be used as a weapon (and it is, to the extent that it is a big powerful force arrayed against a person independently figuring out what they want to spend their resources on).

[grandalf]

> I know it's seems like it's 'dark pattern' week on HN

OK, what is a dark pattern by your definition?

Dark patterns are a relevant topic on HN because many startups are measured in terms of user engagement and the growth of their user-base.

What is the difference between advertising and information? Growth hacking techniques and clickbait? Nudges and dark patterns?

These things are interesting because the line is blurry, and many patterns (dark or otherwise) that used to work suddenly stop working. This is why banner ads worked for a while and why interruption ads are becoming more and more common, and why adblock is becoming more and more common.

The world is not static, and so there is not ever going to be a consistent definition of what constitutes a dark pattern... it depends on the audience. In the first world, most 70 year olds are now on Facebook, and they are vulnerable to many patterns that the younger generations are not.

Just as scammers send senior citizens envelopes that look like social security checks but are actually ads, Facebook offers something that looks like a way to voluntarily share information but is actually often involuntary.

I think FB should take a hard line against dark patterns and be content to grow based on the massive network effect it can get without them.

[BariumBlue]

Pretty sure we need a new term if a term is being co-opted to mean something it's not.

Something like "malign algorithm", or "encroaching design" might do.

[wonkaWonka]

Dark patterns ask you to sit in a chair, without telling you that you can get paid to stand. (masking benefit without restricting access to the benefit; misdirection but without total erosion of trust)

This is about exploiting the exposure of unique identifiers (phone number mapped to email), and an interloping tattle-tale ratting out their correlation to the same owner.

It's something more akin to a Prisoner's Dilema, except people aren't cognizant that "They Are The Product" so no one thinks of themselves as prisoners ratting out conspirators.