Language: English (mozilla)
Deceptive designs, or “dark patterns”, are tricks built into the interfaces of apps and websites designed to obscure or impair consumer autonomy or choice and alter decision-making to lead us towards actions we might not otherwise take. Like when companies make it easy to subscribe to a service but near-impossible to cancel. Or when you have to jump through endless hoops to tell a service not to scoop up and sell your personal data.
• Who is this session for? This session invites everyone — policymakers, civic tech practitioners, private sector, civil servants, UX designers, and the people of the internet.
• Session structure: We will share findings from our initial research on deceptive design as a baseline. We invite you to share your lived experience, discuss opportunities and barriers to change, and brainstorm interventions for addressing deceptive design globally using our human-centered approach.
• Workshop goal: We are using this tested approach to better understand the many challenges around deceptive design and co-create product and policy solutions that promote trusted design patterns.
Deceptive Designs go to the heart of people's ability to live their lives online with dignity, autonomy, and a sense of trust in the products and services. Join us to help shape the priorities of the Web Foundation’s Tech Policy Design Lab on Tackling Deceptive Design and Moving Towards Trusted Design Patterns. Learn more https://techlab.webfoundation.org/deceptive-design/overview
AI-driven and automated design has the potential of building new fully personalized manipulative design experiences that exploit users' vulnerabilities at scale. We hope to share the issue of dark patterns particularly how they affect the global south and what can be done to counter these problems. This issue area is largely identified in the US and OECD countries, but our work has been global and driven out of the global south. The success of this session will be measured against:
Why did you choose that space? How does your session align with the space description?:Number of quality examples of dark pattern actions and responses from the global south
Resonance of examples from global south/north and how they are similar and relate to each other
Practical next steps that participants can take themselves to increase their understanding and include others in this work.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning tools are core of driving the technologies that amplify and perpetuate dark patterns, contributing to an increasing unevenly and disparate impact among different communities and groups. At the core of why these tools are employed in this fashion is the misalignment of ethics in how individuals are treated in the online space. This is vital for any consumer of a private sector product, and increasingly a problem for any interfacing with a government service as so many of the tools employed by a government are designed and implemented by these same companies. Will include examples such as machine learning-powered A/B testing combined with machine learning based optimisation that exacerbate harms by creating the perfect bait through highly personalised content and design changes to manipulate users.
How will you deal with varying numbers of participants in your session? What if 30 participants attend? What if there are 3?:The facilitators are well versed in any size of meeting and workshop - from 1,000 to 1. For a larger audience we may look to the speakers to share a conversation among each other and moderate questions coming in from the chat. For a smaller discussion, we would look to work with the participants about their specific contexts and what work they are facing to host a more collaborative coaching session on how they may work through a problem they are facing.
What happens after MozFest? We're hoping that many efforts and discussions will continue after MozFest. Share any ideas you already have for how to continue the work from your session.:This proposal comes from the Web Foundation’s Tech Policy Design Lab. The Lab is an ongoing space for collaborators with stakeholders from across the globe and from various sectors and levels of expertise. Participants are invited and encouraged to participate in consultations and workshops through the Lab, to learn what works and to join collaborations with governments, civil society, and industry that are looking to tackle these problems. Participants are also welcome to join discussions through the Lab on Dark Patterns and in identifying the next focus of the Lab for its third iteration. Finally, Web Foundation welcomes any collaboration with MozFest on continued conversations and increasing the engagement and capacity in these issue areas.
What language would you like to host your session in?:English