I was/am skeptical also, but a quick Google search found this.

> 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.

Yeah, but I'm with OP: lying is obviously a dark pattern in any marketing text, but that doesn't automatically make every type of text where companies can lie a dark pattern.

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?

Yes but to place it in an unnecessary step between clicking “cancel” and “yes I’m sure, continue to cancel”?

I am not sure what this has anything to do with my statement above. I am talking about social proof here, which is listed as part of dark patterns.

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.

I think it's fine as a marketing argument, like in the page where you present your product. As much as citing the big names already using it.

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.

That's not social proof, that's false urgency, which is its own pattern listed separately.

> 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.

Which is another not a dark pattern. Otherwise the entire existence of brands like Ferrari, Gucci, Rolex is a dark pattern!

As with “social proof”, the author mistakes lying (dark) with marketing (legit).

> Otherwise the entire existence of brands like Ferrari, Gucci, Rolex is a dark pattern!

They are.

As for the rest of them of course, that is a different matter.

As someone who has had to implement a lot of social proof components and ‘urgency messaging’ I’d guess part of it being down to the fact that, a lot of the time, the numbers are absolute trash. I had to do it so often I added a ‘randomNumberBetween’ function to the frontend library I made for one of my employers.

> I am not sure if social proof is a dark pattern.

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.