

You can’t really ban dark patterns even though we all agree they suck.
I think the point I was getting at was that a lot of things dark patterns do are individually things that have the potential for good or bad. Infinite scroll is one example. There’s also modals, sale banners, and so on.
What makes a dark pattern dark isn’t the specific, individual tools at use. It’s the sum of those, plus the intent.




Just to clarify, we’re only talking about mainstream social media here, right? Those are the only platforms they’re considering here, and more specifically, only TikTok right now.
“Infinite scroll” is also how you can scroll up in your chat log and see more messages. It’s how you can open logs for a VM online and see logs going further and further back. It’s how you can search for a video on YouTube and keep scrolling down (past the inevitable pile of shit) until you find it.
On social media platforms, and in particular not in a chat interface, it can be toxic.