I am not sure if social proof is a dark pattern. If you use it to say, here, we already have x number of satisfied customers, what is possibly wrong with that?
> Testimonials and user feedback usually display positive reviews and lack any negative experiences, or details on services or products. Furthermore, the online environment makes it difficult to differentiate between genuine and fake testimonials.
Testimonials in particular feel harmless to me. They've been used for centuries, they're obviously fluff but people understand that, and they don't attempt to coerce or trick you into making a decision, they're just giving you positive data points the same as any other marketing blurb. If you include testimonials I'm not sure how you can exclude any text at all.
I'd say that social proof is only a dark pattern if paired with another dark pattern (urgency, outright lying), in which case it's not really a dark pattern in its own right, is it?
What is wrong with saying, we have X number of happy customers? As long as it's true, I am not sure how it is deceptive.
What isn't fine is when you try to book an hotel room and you get nagging messages saying that 2849 other people want to book the same room for the same dates. And of course when you try to unsubscribe and you need to pass through marketing material, with or without social proof.
> Dark patterns involving urgency impose a real or fake temporal or quantitative limit on a deal to pressure the consumer into making a purchase, thus exploiting the scarcity heuristic. Accordingly, such dark patterns may also be referred to as scarcity cues or claims. Examples include low stock and high demand messages or a countdown timer to indicate an expiring deal or discount.
As with “social proof”, the author mistakes lying (dark) with marketing (legit).
They are.
It is when it’s faked¹ or biased² which happens mighty frequently. I’ve seen websites posted to HN which blatantly used AI profile pictures and AI generated text for the testimonials. That is the norm, not the exception.
¹ Not real people or testimonials.
² Only showing the 3 positive reviews out of 100 negative.