Social manipulation
Types of social manipulation
Friend spam
An interface that asks for email or social media permissions to do something beneficial for the user (ex. finding friends) but spams personal contacts instead.
Social pyramid
Forces users to invite friends to unlock certain perks (in-game currency, upgrades, discounts, etc.).
Fake social proof
Manipulates users into purchasing a product by displaying fake customers’ shopping patterns or attitudes.
Example
In DropBox, as of 2025, still includes a Refer a friend feature where users can get up to 16 GB of storage if they send a link or an email to their friend to invite them to join. This incentives users to send unsolicited emails and give personal information to DropBox.
