Ask HN: Rant on LinkedIn dark design patterns on mobile

[dieselgate]

Im back on an intentional job search and unfortunately started going back on linkedin just to get a wider exposure to job postings. Am somewhat surprised by this but linkedin website on mobile (not the app) does not seem to have any way to log out from the account. I looked for a couple minutes and couldn’t find anything so it’s possible I missed it - but nothing is obvious. Additionally, the expected place one would look for such a “feature” is the top right of the page - and that’s where the mobile site puts the link to messages. So it seems to be kind of an intentional loop into getting Users to view messages rather than leaving.

Am somewhat dumbfounded by this but certainly seems like a dark pattern. Phuck you linkedin for this kind of stuff. I’ve always hated this platform and know others share similar feelings (and know there are advocates for it - fair enough).

My browser is set to not store cookies/cache anyway so after closing the mobile browser I was logged out. But good riddance.

[pamoroso]

Just on mobile? LinkedIn is pretty much one of the poster children of dark patterns.

[dieselgate → pamoroso]

i remember that now, ignorance was bliss not logging on for the past few years

[slater]

Linkedin and all the other huge sites are well-known for this, unfortunately.

[SonOfKyuss]

Click on your profile, then select the settings gear icon. Scroll to the bottom. There should be a sign out option there.

Yes, it sucks and it seems more and more sites are doing this sort of thing (Nextdoor is even worse)

[dieselgate → SonOfKyuss]

oh okay you are correct with this. i thought the gear icon was for editing background photo stuff and unrelated to account, but yes it's possible to find log out this way

[SonOfKyuss → dieselgate]

It’s non-intuitive by design

[birdymcbird]

used linked in on mobile web browser. there is another pattern where cider accidentally “like” post without knowing. so my page full of me liking random items that appear on my feed over time. stupid dark pattern to fake engagement metric.

definitely some product manager know this and intentionally keep it to increase their metric