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You might not have heard of a “dark pattern,” but chances are you’ve seen these annoying, manipulative designs trying to trick you into clicking, buying, or signing up for something you don’t want. Today I introduced the DETOUR Act with @SenatorFischer to do something about them.
These techniques range from mildly annoying to deeply insidious. Here are some examples of #DarkPatterns you may have seen online:
Ever run into a bunch of contradictory checkboxes that try to trick you into signing up for someone’s email list? That’s a dark pattern. 
I don’t know about you, but I hate it when I go to buy something online, only to see the price jump right as I’m about to check out. Those hidden costs are another type of dark pattern.
Pop-ups like this one that force you to click one of the buttons in order to access the website is another example of a dark pattern. Ditto for “confirshaming” techniques like this, which guilt users into taking an action like signing up for a company’s email list.
Can you tell which of these buttons is a legitimate download link and which ones are ads? Your guess is as good as mine. “Disguised Ads” are another type of dark pattern.
Using drop-down sections or discolored text to hide information or opt-in checkboxes? Yep, #DarkPatterns.
This one might take the cake: using fake hairs or smudges to trick people into clicking mobile ads.
Some of these #DarkPatterns, like the fake hairs, may just cause some minor inconvenience. But too often, large social media platforms have relied on all sorts of tricks to convince users to hand over their personal data without really understanding what they are consenting to.
Case in point: privacy settings that push users to ‘agree’ as the default option, while users looking for more privacy-friendly options often must click through a much longer process, detouring through multiple screens.
These design tactics, drawn from extensive behavioral psychology research, are frequently used by social media platforms to mislead consumers into agreeing to settings and practices advantageous to the company.
For example, it was reported in 2014 that Facebook conducted an experiment involving nearly 700,000 users to study the emotional impact of manipulating information on their News Feeds. forbes.com/sites/gregorym…
I think folks have a right to know if social media companies are using them as guinea pigs, and especially if you’re being emotionally manipulated by an experiment.
The Deceptive Experiences to Online Users Reduction (DETOUR) Act aims to curb dark patterns by prohibiting the largest online platforms (> 100 million monthly active users) from relying on user interfaces that intentionally impair user autonomy, decision-making, or choice.
It would also require informed consent for behavioral experimentation on users and prohibit user design intended to create compulsive usage among children under 13 years of age.
The goal of the DETOUR Act is simple: instill a little transparency in what remains a very opaque market and make sure that consumers are able to make more informed choices about how and when to share their personal information.
