Baby Reindeer, Binge Culture, Defamation and Dark UX
Kyle Wilson
Finally found milk that tastes like real milk. I also write some cool shit. All thoughts & opinions presented are my own and are not affiliated with or represented by any employers. Am Yisrael Chai.
Can a potential dark UX pattern and a culture of binge-watching help strengthen Fiona Harvey’s defamation against Netflix?
DISCLAIMER, to demonstrate to Netflix how a disclaimer should work: This article makes no comments on the actual ‘true events’ transpiring in the series, nor makes any comments regarding the legitimacy of Netflix and Gadd's claims.
It’s also important to be able to separate one’s like or dislike of Harvey from the failures of Netflix on the grounds of dark UX practices (or successes rather, from Netflix's perspective), and a failure of duty of care.
I'm also not a lawyer. I'm approaching this from a purely logical perspective, and asking a question that I feel by all means should be asked.
If you haven’t been living under a rock — and no slight to those who actually have during this housing & cost of living crisis — you’ve either seen or heard of Netflix’s ‘Baby Reindeer' series. More recently, you may even be aware of Fiona Harvey and her team of international lawyers intending to take on Netflix and Gadd to sue for defamation.
Firstly, here is a succinct (ish) summary of the pieces at play. Then, I’ll get to where potential dark UX practices come in:
Did Netflix lie under oath?
A fantastic YouTube video by The Behavioural Arts delves into the body language of Benjamin King, Netflix’s Senior UK Director of Public Policy. On May 8, The House of Commons Culture Media and Sport Committee grilled King, and when asked about the accuracy of Baby Reindeer and what measures they took in order to protect the identity of individuals related to the ‘true story’, King doubled down and stated that this is “Obviously a true story”.
Obvious to who? Well, to viewers at the very least, and more so to The House of Commons it seems.
An interaction with The Behavioural Arts actually led me to write this piece. And truthfully, The Behavioural Arts AKA Bedros “Spidey” Akkelian, is a lot more than a YouTuber, he’s a world-class award-winning mentalist and behavioural analyst with military expertise.
So where does dark UX come into (auto) play here?
According to user 'rsweeney21' on Hacker News at ycombinator.com, who was the developer who built Netflix's 'Next episode' feature (which was at the time referred to internally as "post-play"), the product team at Netflix had two KPIs all new features were tested against: hours watched and retention.
Quote from rsweeney21:
"So yes, Netflix wants you to spend more hours watching Netflix and the product team is scientifically engineering the product to make it more addictive."
Now, a product team with KPI's that have nothing to do with the well-being of the user and a focus on making a product more addictive? This may well form the foundations for a solid argument that this feature is what we call dark UX.
Of course, this isn't going to come as a shock to any UX practitioners worth their salt. It's not even news or a revelation for us in the industry.
However, it was important that I went down this path and that I demonstrated precisely how Netflix approaches their product design.
And is Netflix's approach successful? Absolutely. The existence and proliferation of binge-culture is proof enough. However this same success may have bitten Netflix in the ass, and rightly so.
Before we continue: what is dark ux?
Dark UX involves patterns of design or features that subtly encourage users to perform — or in this case not perform — a specific action. But unlike good UX, dark patterns benefit the company, not the user.
By definition, this aligns precisely with the Netflix product team’s alleged KPI measurements.
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Netflix’s 'Next episode' feature is actively concealing the end-of-episode disclaimer
The reality is that users will never make it to this disclaimer unless they jump through the hoops required to seek it out.
I will openly accuse anyone who says that they made it to this screen in an organic viewing of the series of blatantly lying, despite how many YouTube and Reddit soap boxers feel the need to lick the boots of a $278 Billion dollar company.
You need to actively select the ‘Watch credits’ button to get this far.
You’d then need to sit through approximately 58 seconds of credit in order for this disclaimer to reach you.
In a world where according to Forbes, the average time spent on a web page is 54 seconds, this doesn’t constitute anywhere close to sufficient when we’re — no pun intended — looking at the big picture here.
But why would Netflix (and by extension Gadd) mislead everyone in the first place?
This one is simple.
‘This is a true story’ markets better. It sells better. It retains subscriptions better. It wins the fight against other content in the attention economy. And it does it so much better than something that is merely based on a true story, no?
It’s Netflix’s KPI-friendly motivator.
So could this help Harvey in her defamation case?
I’m no lawyer. It may not help at all.
I’m just using logic here from a Product Design standpoint, and I'd be fascinated to see if dark UX is cited as a contributor in a legal setting.
From what I can ascertain — via the alleged metrics that Netflix’s product team’s features are measured up against — dark UX is at play here, and Netflix is relying on the end-of-credit disclaimer that no users are going to see because of a very specific feature, that feature being 'Next episode'.
The fact that this feature has been “scientifically engineered” to make it more addictive would have no bearing on the case, but on ethical grounds? It doesn’t look very good for Netflix.
And this could just be one of many messy, messy pieces in the legal fight ahead. Even if Netflix views it as ‘the cost of doing business’.
And you know what? I hope it can be used as a legal precedent. I believe that we need legislation for these kinds of UX practices.
Cheers for reading.
Snet from my iPhone.
Sources in order of reference:
Self Employed
9 个月The wild thing is, people have been skipping credits that include disclaimers at the end LONG before Netflix existed. People have done it before and during the time of VHS and Beta Max, before by just getting up and leaving when the credits start and during by stopping the cassette when the credits start to roll (and if they were kind, they then rewound...lol). That's like claiming a contract you signed doesn't fully apply because you didn't read it in full. Or thinking that you can't be evicted from your apartment because you have a dog, because you didn't read/skipped the "no pet" policy in your signed lease. No one has any control over if humans choose to skip all the credits and the disclaimer, if necessary, that is at the very end of films and shows that rely on the hype of being "a true story". Baby Reindeer isn't even remotely the first show and/or film to ever do that. In fact disclaimers in film began in the 1930s because of a Princess and her claim of defamation in a film. Anyone who seriously thinks the button "Watch Credits" doesn't work because it's grey are just lazy, because absolutely NOTHING is stopping them from just attempting to click on it.