Prologue
Their faces give nothing away. It’s a Thursday afternoon in March 2021, and the Communications and Technology subcommittee of the 117th Congress is holding a joint hearing online. Three of the world’s most powerful people have been invited to give testimony in a session called ‘Disinformation Nation: Social Media’s Role in Promoting Extremism and Misinformation’.1 Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google; Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter; and Mark Zuckerberg, Chairman and CEO of Facebook.
It’s the moment I’ve been waiting for. The camera cuts to House Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester. She introduces the concept of dark patterns and defines them as ‘intentionally deceptive user interfaces that trick people’. She asks Pichai, Dorsey and Zuckerberg:
‘Would you oppose legislation that bans the use of intentionally manipulative design techniques that trick users into giving up their personal information?’
As the camera cuts to each of the CEOs, we see a stark difference. Lisa Blunt Rochester is sitting in a tiny wooden booth, connected with a grainy laptop webcam, but each one of the CEOs is evidently on a film set with professional lighting, cameras and microphones.
Picahi replies promisingly, ‘We definitely are happy to have oversight on these areas.’
Dorsey replies with just three words, ‘Open to it.’
Zuckerberg is more evasive. ‘Congresswoman, I think the principle makes sense and the details matter.’
His reply seems to antagonise Blunt Rochester, who pushes him further: ‘OK. Mr Zuckerberg, your company recently conducted this massive ad campaign on how far the internet has come in the last 25 years. Great ad. You ended with a statement: “We support updated internet regulations to address today’s challenges.” Unfortunately, the proposal that you direct your viewers to fails to address dark patterns, user manipulation, or deceptive design choices. Mr Zuckerberg, will you commit now to include deceptive design choices as part of your platform for better internet regulations?’
Zuckerberg hesitates for a moment: ‘Congresswoman I’ll… I’ll think about it. My initial response is that I feel there are other areas that I think might be more urgently in need…’
Blunt Rochester cuts him off and gives a final speech, knowing her five minutes are almost up. ‘If you say this is a desire of yours to address the issues that we face today – dark patterns goes back to 2010 – this whole issue of deceptive practices. And I hope that you will look into it! I will say […] our children […] our seniors, veterans, people of color, even our very democracy is at stake here. We must act and I assure you – we will assure you – we will act.’
A moving speech, but the CEOs are holding all their cards close to their chest. They know regulatory change is coming, but they don’t want to give away any more than they have to.
* * *
Lisa Blunt Rochester was spot on in her statement. The concept of dark patterns harks back to early 2010. I know this, because I coined the term; though had I known it would become so popular, I would have taken a bit more care with the name. I remember sitting at my kitchen table in May 2010, ballpoint pen in hand. As I wrote about this topic for the first time, I was putting together a talk for a conference. ‘I’m not sure there’ll be enough here for a 20-minute presentation,’ I thought to myself – but the more I looked, the more I found. Deceptive tricks and techniques were in use all over the place and, at the time, nobody was talking about them.
A lot has changed since then.