# About Engaging and Governing Strategies: A Thematic Analysis of Dark Patterns in Social Networking Services

## TL;DR

This study analyzes dark patterns in social networking services by examining user interactions, revealing new strategies and patterns that influence user control and engagement, based on thematic analysis of screen recordings.

## Contribution

It introduces two novel strategies—engaging and governing—and identifies five previously undiscovered dark patterns in SNSs through empirical analysis.

## Key findings

- Identification of dark patterns in SNSs
- Discovery of two new strategies: engaging and governing
- Five previously unknown dark patterns

## Abstract

Research in HCI has shown a growing interest in unethical design practices across numerous domains, often referred to as ``dark patterns''. There is, however, a gap in related literature regarding social networking services (SNSs). In this context, studies emphasise a lack of users' self-determination regarding control over personal data and time spent on SNSs. We collected over 16 hours of screen recordings from Facebook's, Instagram's, TikTok's, and Twitter's mobile applications to understand how dark patterns manifest in these SNSs. For this task, we turned towards HCI experts to mitigate possible difficulties of non-expert participants in recognising dark patterns, as prior studies have noticed. Supported by the recordings, two authors of this paper conducted a thematic analysis based on previously described taxonomies, manually classifying the recorded material while delivering two key findings: We observed which instances occur in SNSs and identified two strategies - engaging and governing - with five dark patterns undiscovered before.