Spotting the irony when privacy critics use dark patterns and trick wording

Wasn’t FOMO manipulation / “trick wording” a darkpattern? Why then do some critics thereof use them? Genuinely curious.

Not all do so, far from it (and some of the most prominent ones are very good at *avoiding* such techniques), but it seems that some enjoy labelling everything as “Breaking” (even information that is more than a day old or a planned moment, such as the entry into force of rules adopted a while ago – some even use it for self-produced information). And if the most vocal people on LinkedIn all post about similar points of view, your point of view might not be “controversial” (my op-eds that are more controversial and are labelled as such are ones where clearly regulators and campaigners don’t think the same way).

I get it: reaching an audience isn’t easy, and getting engagements isn’t either, so lots of marketing tricks can help.

But if my clients are bad guys for allegedly using those techniques, shouldn’t the “good guys” be avoiding them like the plague?

data protection gdpr aiact dsa dma taggingeverythingthatmightbeofinteresttomyaudience thisisdefinitelynotasarcasticpost

On a more serious note, I keep on going back to the supermarket analogy. If a supermarket is allowed to place the premium products at eye level and the cheaper ones higher or lower, what makes digital interfaces inherently so much more devoid of freedom that a slightly different emphasis should be deemed illegal? Likely a topic for a more in-depth and potentially controversial op-ed in the coming months.