META: The ‘Threads’ App is FILLED With Deceptive Dark Design Patterns – We Spotted More Than TEN.

Aside from probably the launch of ChatGPT, I can’t ever recall a recent time in which the internet was THIS excited. While I personally believed that Zuckerberg’s new Threads app was doomed to be a hit and miss, it seems like I was dead wrong – the app saw more than 10 million users sign up in just 1.5 hours, with the number climbing up to 75 million as per a recent announcement from Zuckerberg. The reason? FOMO, along with the fact that the Threads app was designed to be incredibly intuitive. You didn’t need to make an account – if you were on Instagram, the account was already made for you. A simple click would import all your followers, your profile settings, and profile-picture and bio. However, veiled underneath that ease and convenience were a few patterns that designers and tech nerds were all too familiar with. These patterns, referred to as Dark Design Patterns, are known to manipulate and influence a user into doing something against their will.

As a user, you’ve probably encountered a whole bunch of dark design patterns in your life. If you’ve used the Uber app, you’re familiar with how notorious it is to cancel a ride while the app is searching for one. The ‘Cancel Ride’ button is greyed out, but the ‘Continue Searching’ is black and highly visible. Hit the Cancel button and Uber asks you at least twice if you’re sure you want to cancel. Amazon does the same thing with its Prime subscribers. Try canceling your Prime subscription and chances are you’ll just give up because Amazon’s made it so incredibly hard to cancel an active Prime membership.

The Threads app almost immediately displayed a whole bunch of dark patterns with its user interface. We spotted at least 11 of them, and we’re sure there are a lot more to come. Here are some highly evident dark tricks the Threads app is using to ensure you stay on the platform as long as you possibly can… and supply Meta with even more data than before.

There’s a simple way to avoid all that, of course.