Screen persuasive copy for manipulation
LLMs are excellent at producing high-converting marketing copy — and that is exactly the problem. They readily reproduce false urgency, fake scarcity, fear appeals, and guilt-tripping opt-outs that regulators classify as dark patterns. This checker scans pasted text against a library of known manipulation patterns and flags risky passages with explanations and rewrite suggestions, so you can clean copy before it ships. Everything runs locally in your browser.
How it works
You paste the text and the tool runs a set of pattern matchers over it. Each matcher targets a recognised manipulation family — countdown and “act now” phrasing for false urgency, “only N left” and “selling fast” for scarcity, “don’t miss out” and “you’ll regret” for fear, “everyone is buying” for social proof, and shaming opt-out labels like “No thanks, I hate saving money” for confirmshaming. For every match it reports the pattern type, the matched phrase, why it is risky, and a neutral rewrite. A summary tallies how many distinct patterns appeared so you can judge overall pressure.
Tips and notes
- Truth is the dividing line. Accurate, disclosed scarcity is legitimate; fabricated scarcity is deceptive.
- Confirmshaming is a common LLM tic. Watch opt-out copy especially.
- A clean scan is not legal clearance. It is a fast triage, not a compliance opinion.
- Instruct your model. Add “no false urgency, scarcity, or guilt language” to the prompt to reduce flags at the source.