Has web 2.0 made lying to users acceptable?

Posted by amichail on Tuesday May 05, 2009 @12:03PM
from the self-post dept.

An example of a common lie would be to give the user the impression that some of their data is visible to others while this is not actually the case.

Another example is to give the user the impression that the site is busier than it is really is via fake profiles/data.

What other sorts of lies do web 2.0 services use?

Taking this further: suppose you don't feel bad at all about lying to your users. What sorts of lies would you use?

( 9 comments | 6 points | on HN )

Re:Has web 2.0 made lying to users acceptable? by pie on Tuesday May 05, 2009 @12:23PM (#594311)

I often see "social media" sites hiring users (via Craigslist's writing section or Mechanical Turk) to create accounts and engage in some baseline level of participation. I know there's the old chicken-and-egg issue when working toward critical mass on a community site, but something about hiring scads of primarily-disinterested users seems a little dirty and dishonest to me.

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Re:Has web 2.0 made lying to users acceptable? by gommm on Wednesday May 06, 2009 @09:46AM (#595695)

It depends on your intent if it's only hiring those users to get some first users or if you hire them to have a baseline level of participation so as to get feedback and find bugs you wouldn't find otherwise....

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Re:Has web 2.0 made lying to users acceptable? by madair on Tuesday May 05, 2009 @12:13PM (#594297)

I think some citations would be in order.

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Re:Has web 2.0 made lying to users acceptable? by xiaoma on Tuesday May 05, 2009 @04:07PM (#594626)

"An example of a common lie would be to give the user the impression that some of their data is visible to others while this is not actually the case."

Reddit really, really angered me this way. I continued writing comments for about a month before realizing they were invisible to everyone else. While I was logged in, though, the site displayed them. I was absolutely shocked at the level of deception and dishonesty.

How many others were similarly tricked into thinking they were actually communicating with the online community?

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Re:Has web 2.0 made lying to users acceptable? by gommm on Wednesday May 06, 2009 @09:48AM (#595700)

I didn't know any website doing that... Is it because something triggered their spam detection? (I mean I don't see the point otherwise of doing that to a user)

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Re:Has web 2.0 made lying to users acceptable? by sachmanb on Tuesday May 05, 2009 @02:17PM (#594462)

hate to break it to you but politics=coercion and capitalism=exploitation

it is our wisdom, good will and such that pushes politics to be less coercive and capitalism to be less exploitative while getting by but to be very successful at either requires the opposite.

which is all to say, the fundamental architectures of our societies are designed against us.

let me know if you find a solution :)

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Re:Has web 2.0 made lying to users acceptable? by eru on Tuesday May 05, 2009 @03:16PM (#594564)

Could you help me find the connection to the original submission?

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Re:Has web 2.0 made lying to users acceptable? by sachmanb on Tuesday May 05, 2009 @04:09PM (#594630)

sure, the poster seems to be under the impression that lying to get business is something new in web 2.0, and these black hat SEO strategies, teasing consumers, puffing up businesses to look bigger than they are etc are something unique to web 2.0. i posted to share that this is not a web 2.0 phenomena, and once again it's just the net reflecting existing things.

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Re:Has web 2.0 made lying to users acceptable? by morpheism on Tuesday May 05, 2009 @02:26PM (#594482)

I don't think lying to users is ever acceptable. Perhaps "web 2.0" just makes a common phenomenon more transparent and easily recognizable.

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