[Seattle3503]

> The burden of proof should fall on the platform, not the victim. The question is not whether a harmed user can show specific damage. The question is whether the company can show, before rolling a product out to billions of people, that it is not predatory by design.

That's asking every company to prove a negative before rolling out new features.

Could we have a regulatory agency that keeps an eye on dark patterns and deals with them as evidence emerges that something is harmful.

[Pet_Ant]

> That's asking every company to prove a negative before rolling out new features.

That’s not as rediculous as it seems. That’s sort of model that drug manufacturers follow. It would also mean that if internally they see troubling behaviour they know they have to stop.

Practically, it would be corporate cover up. And applied earnestly it would make these businesses unviable.

[intended]

Wait how?

Internal testing showed these features were addictive. They had resources allocated to creating addictive experiences for tweens.

The underlying behavioral science is well studied, down to the causal level.

Dark patterns are designed to make it hard to exit and unsubscribe. The language is purposefully obtuse, the options buried behind menu choices. We have enough A/B testing data to know how effective friction is at dissuading people from following a path.

How are we proving a negative here?

[Seattle3503]

Proving something is addictive is not proving a negative

[intended]

Ok. So is that you are saying that the quoted section is setting up a situation where the firm has to prove a negative?

[Seattle3503]

Yes

> The question is whether the company can show, before rolling a product out to billions of people, that it is not predatory by design.

"Not predatory" is a negative