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Comment by basseq | Hacker News Reader

Immediately posting a tweet without my say-so? For shame. An abuse of trust in this day in age and a reason I hate Twitter/Facebook universal sign-ins. Access revoked. Goodbye.

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There was a checkbox (automatically pre-checked) that actually triggered that Tweet. Not saying it's any better, but I did see the box. (picture here: http://elsewhe.re/Cklw)

In Chrome (Win 16.0.912.63), the checkbox and description are there for a split second as the page loads and then disappears. I turned off Adblock in case that was the cause, but the checkbox is still invisible even when I do that.

Adblock is the only extension installed, so I don't know why the checkbox is invisible to me. I'll assume it's a bug - but figured I'll call it out here in case people signup and then wonder why Timekiwi made an 'authorised' tweet advertising their services.

Same Chrome version but on Ubuntu 11.10 and it appears fine for me. No Adblock.

I'm seeing it currently (Win, Chrome, Adblock). I don't remember seeing it yesterday, but not sure if it's because they updated the page or that I'm not used to looking for service details on signup.

Either way, it's disingenuous, IMO. You can call it "user error" and ignore the issue, but I doubt I'm the only one.

Does someone have any data on whether people gain net traction by treating early adopters like promotional tools with shitty opt-out gimmicks like this?

Maybe early adopters were willing to suffer through more in the olden days or still are?

It seems like a stupid way to go about creating hype, loyalty, and traction for your start-up.

I must say I'd be interested in this kind of research.

I am immediately skeptical of any service that doesn't explicitly state "We will not post to your Facebook".

I think this should be built into the Facebook Platform TOS somehow. Sites that disingenuously post stuff after signup without indicating so give a bad name to Facebook Platform as an authentication device.

At the end of the day, it should be the user that grants individual permissions, not an all-or-nothing application request. (See Also: the Facebook permission add-ons that do just that.)

I agree with fookyong, that the request to post things on my behalf is an immediate yellow flag for any application except for a Twitter client.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but as someone mentioned, there was a checkbox.

It should've been unchecked by default, because that's what a majority of new sign-ups would expect/want. Instead you could ask for a promotional tweet on users' behalf once they become established users (by some reasonable metric).

A. Oh, I wish I had seen and checked the box, that initial tweet didn't get sent out.

B. Oh, I wish I had seen and unchecked the box, I was surprised that a tweet got sent out.

Which way do you think the vote would go if you asked people their preferred scenario?

I don't disagree, and at least there was a checkbox, but blaming the user for what's at best a UX issue and at worst an abuse of trust doesn't bode well for a new service.

Moreover, they're asking users to make a decision about whether to promote their service without first using it. I think you'd get more engagement if you populated your timeline and there was a message that said, "Hey, isn't this cool? Let us know what you think, or tell your friends about it. Thanks for using <SERVICE>!"

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