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#darkpatterns

2 posts2 participants0 posts today

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.

kaffeeringe.de/2025/07/24/soci

I discovered an anti-corpo lifehack and tbh I think its a pretty great one!

So you know those annoying "sign up for our free trial" sites that basically "forget" to notify you that you need to cancel and try to get you for like 10,000 years of subscriptions?

I found a way to counter.

I use a lot of cash purchased "nonreloadable" credit cards bc I'm trying to counterpunch with privacy, okay? Last night I was signing up for a free trial of a thing and I didn't have a disposable card avail that would cover the "post trial" cost.

So... I used one of the many leftover cards I have with like, less than five dollars on them for a "two hundred after trial" thing.

Aaaaaaand it worked.

So basically:
- I used a throwaway email
- I used a 'paid in cash' card to secure my trial
- There's literally no way they can really charge me unless I decide I want to continue.

Obv this only works if they take gift card style credit cards (the ones I use only work for US based payment processing annoyingly) and you need to be able to like, GET one but yeah.

Fuck corpo scams!

I despise #google AI tools intrusive "help" in my gmail so much. When I turn it off the simplest thing "categories" also gets disabled. Beyond #enshitification and #DarkPatterns, I used to use my own rules and labels for the same thing, but didn't have a need

Now if I turn off AI assistant, my inbox gets cluttered with all the category shit.

Just fuck right off with your productivity AI tools. It's like having a toxic 7 year old telling me I'm doing it wrong.

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.

Delft Fringe Festival, best leuk, behave als je een kaartje probeert te kopen zonder cookies en spyware te accepteren. :blobangery: Je kunt sommige cookies afwijzen, als je de verstopte menu optie weet te vinden, maar dat moet je dan bij elke stap in het bestelproces opnieuw doen. :blobfacepalm:

Hier de indrukwekkende lijst van advertentie bedrijven die met je mee kijkt, waaronder #Google en #Facebook: themarkup.org/blacklight?url=h

I suspect that #parentalcontrols are intentionally designed to make it harder for #parents to take any actions that aren't in the tech company's business interests.

I can’t tell if it’s #BadBadUX because it’s deprioritized internally, “tacked on” at the end, or if it’s deliberate #DarkPatterns to confuse and exasperate parents into complying with their monetization goals.

My experience in #PlayStation, #Roblox, #YouTube, #GooglePlay is so bad, it couldn’t be by accident.

The Register: India none-too-subtly reminds Big Tech that local laws prohibit dark patterns. “India’s government has reminded big tech companies that it has rules that prohibit the use of dark patterns – deceptive design practices that deliberately mislead and confuse customers of online services and apps – and called for an end to their use.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/06/04/the-register-india-none-too-subtly-reminds-big-tech-that-local-laws-prohibit-dark-patterns/

ResearchBuzz: Firehose | Individual posts from ResearchBuzz · The Register: India none-too-subtly reminds Big Tech that local laws prohibit dark patterns | ResearchBuzz: Firehose
More from ResearchBuzz: Firehose
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

Die Verbraucherminister fordern mehr Schutz vor #DarkPatterns & gezielter Werbung! 📢 Sie sehen Handlungsbedarf bei Online-Marktplätzen & sozialen Netzwerken, die psychologische Tricks nutzen. Der Digital Fairness Act könnte helfen. Mehr dazu hier: heise.de/news/Verbraucherminis #Verbraucherschutz #DSA 🛡️ #newz

Kurzlink: heise.de/-10398656

heise online · Verbraucherminister machen gegen Dark Patterns und gezielte Werbung mobilBy Stefan Krempl