Interest in unethical user interfaces has grown in HCI over recent years, with researchers identifying malicious design strategies referred to as ''dark patterns''. While such strategies have been described in numerous domains, we lack a thorough understanding of how they operate in social networking services (SNSs). Pivoting towards regulations against such practices, we address this gap by offering novel insights into the types of dark patterns deployed in SNSs and people's ability to recognise them across four widely used mobile SNS applications. Following a cognitive walkthrough, experts (N=6) could identify instances of dark patterns in all four SNSs, including co-occurrences. Based on the results, we designed a novel rating procedure for evaluating the malice of interfaces. Our evaluation shows that regular users (N=193) could differentiate between interfaces featuring dark patterns and those without. Such rating procedures could support policymakers' current moves to regulate deceptive and manipulative designs in online interfaces.

翻译：近年来，人机交互领域对不道德用户界面的兴趣日益增长，研究者识别出被称为"暗黑模式"的恶意设计策略。尽管这类策略已在多个领域得到描述，但我们仍缺乏对其在社交网络服务中运作机制的深入理解。针对此类实践的监管趋势，我们通过提供关于SNS中部署的暗黑模式类型及用户识别能力的全新见解来填补这一空白，研究对象涵盖四种广泛使用的移动社交网络应用。通过认知走查法，专家（N=6）成功识别了所有四个SNS中的暗黑模式实例，包括共现模式。基于研究结果，我们设计了一种新颖的界面恶意度评估程序。评估表明，普通用户（N=193）能够区分包含暗黑模式的界面与不含此类设计的界面。此类评估程序可支持政策制定者当前对在线界面中欺骗性与操控性设计的监管行动。